Men suppose their reason has command over their words; still it happens that words in return exercise authority on reason

Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.

All good moral philosophy is ... but the handmaid to religion.

Nobility of birth commonly abateth industry.

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

All painting is an accident. But it's also not an accident, because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve.

The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds. And though there be many things in nature which are singular and unmatched, yet it devises for them parallels and conjugates and relatives which do not exist. Hence the fiction that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles, spirals and dragons being (except in name) utterly rejected.