An artist must learn to be nourished by his passions and by his despairs.

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.

For cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves.

Because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical.

There is no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and onsets of things.

The breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air than in the hand.

But by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this-that men despair and think things impossible.