The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all as things now are with slight endeavour and scanty success.

A much talking judge is an ill-tuned cymbal.

If I might control the literature of the household, I would guarantee the well-being of Church and State.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

If you dissemble sometimes your knowledge of that you are thought to know, you shall be thought, another time, to know that you know not.

The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search for truth. So it does more harm than good.

Virtue is like precious odours,-most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.