When any of the four pillars of government-religion, justice, counsel, and treasure-are mainly shaken or weakened, men had need to pray for fair weather.

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.

The voice of the people has about it something divine: for how otherwise can so many heads agree together as one?

We think according to nature. We speak according to rules. We act according to custom.

The divisions of science are not like different lines that meet in one angle, but rather like the branches of trees that join in one trunk.

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand - and melting like a snowflake.