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.

Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.

By indignities men come to dignities.

To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affection; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar.

There was never law, or sect, or opinion did so much magnify goodness, as the Christian religion doth.

It would be unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.

For the chain of causes cannot by any force be loosed or broken, nor can nature be commanded except by being obeyed.