Let the mind be enlarged... to the grandeur of the mysteries, and not the mysteries contracted to the narrowness of the mind

The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course, it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.

Of all things known to mortals, wine is the most powerful and effectual for exciting and inflaming the passions of mankind, being common fuel to them all.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns the water, or but writes in dust.

Disciples do owe their masters only a temporary belief, and a suspension of their own judgment till they be fully instructed.

If a man's wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores, splitters of hairs.

Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said) more professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced: the labour having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progression. For I find much iteration, but small addition. It considereth causes of diseases, with the occasions or impulsions; the diseases themselves, with the accidents; and the cures, with the preservation.