We see then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities have been decayed and demolished?

The essential form of knowledge... is nothing but a representation of truth: for the truth of being and the truth of knowing are one, differing no more than the direct beam and the beam reflected.

The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men, is the vicissitude of sects and religions.

Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.

A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.

But the best demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual experiment.

For the chain of causes cannot by any force be loosed or broken, nor can nature be commanded except by being obeyed.