It is good discretion not make too much of any man at the first; because one cannot hold out that proportion.

In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.

When a doubt is once received, men labour rather how to keep it a doubt still, than how to solve it; and accordingly bend their wits.

You could say that I have no inspiration, that I only need to paint.

The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns the water, or but writes in dust.

Atheism leads a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue.