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

Of all things known to mortals, wine is the most powerful and effectual for exciting and inflaming the passions of mankind, being common fuel to them all.

But the idols of the Market Place are the most troublesome of all: idols which have crept into the understanding through their alliances with words and names. For men believe that their reason governs words. But words turn and twist the understanding. This it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences inactive. Words are mostly cut to the common fashion and draw the distinctions which are most obvious to the common understanding. Whenever an understanding of greater acuteness or more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the true distinctions of nature, words complain.

If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.

Why should a man be in love with his fetters, though of gold?

So that every wand or staff of empire is forsooth curved at top.

Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.