Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.

I consider as lovers of books not those who keep their books hidden in their store-chests and never handle them, but those who, by nightly as well as daily use thumb them, batter them, wear them out, who fill out all the margins with annotations of many kinds, and who prefer the marks of a fault they have erased to a neat copy full of faults.

From hence, no question, has sprung an observation ... confirmed now into a settled opinion, that some long experienced souls in the world, before their dislodging, arrive to the height of prophetic spirits.

I am a citizen of the world, known to all and to all a stranger.

Nature, more of a stepmother than a mother in several ways, has sown a seed of evil in the hearts of mortals, especially in the more thoughtful men, which makes them dissatisfied with their own lot and envious of another s.

The Jewish usurers are fast-rooted even in the smallest villages, and if they lend five gulden they require a security of six times as much. They charge interest, upon interest, and upon this again interest, so that the poor man loses everything that he owns.

It's the generally accepted privilege of theologians to stretch the heavens, that is the Scriptures, like tanners with a hide.