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

Brutes by their natural instinct have produced many discoveries, whereas men by discussion and the conclusions of reason have given birth to few or none.

Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.

It is by discourse that men associate, and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obsesses the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into innumerable and inane controversies and fancies.

In nature things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place.

If you dissemble sometimes your knowledge of that you are thought to know, you shall be thought, another time, to know that you know not.

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.