The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded.

Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.

Truth is a naked and open daylight

There is no such flatterer as is a man's self.

Men are rather beholden ... generally to chance or anything else, than to logic, for the invention of arts and sciences.

An illustrational form tells you through the intelligence immediately what the form is about, whereas a non-illustrational form works first upon sensation and then slowly leaks back into the fact.

A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.