Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.

There is no secrecy comparable to celerity.

It cannot be denied that outward accidents conduce much to fortune, favor, opportunity, death of others, occasion fitting virtue; but chiefly, the mold of a man's fortune is in his own hands

Since my logic aims to teach and instruct the understanding, not that it may with the slender tendrils of the mind snatch at and lay hold of abstract notions (as the common logic does), but that it may in very truth dissect nature, and discover the virtues and actions of bodies, with their laws as determined in matter; so that this science flows not merely from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things.

I paint for myself. I don't know how to do anything else, anyway. Also I have to earn my living, and occupy myself.

In civil business; what first? boldness; what second and third? boldness: and yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness.

Vices of the time; vices of the man.