Dreams, and predictions of astrology....ought to serve but for winter talk by the fireside.

If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.

Men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts.

I use all sorts of things to work with: old brooms, old sweaters, and all kinds of peculiar tools and materials... I paint to excite myself, and make something for myself.

...neither is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper parts of any science, if you stand but upon the level of the same science, and ascend not to a higher science.

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

The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course, it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.