The partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch not in a point; but are like branches of a tree, that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance, before it come to discontinue and break itself into arms and boughs.

Of all the things in nature, the formation and endowment of man was singled out by the ancients.

Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to know which he doth not.

I regret not starting to paint earlier...It is one of the few things I do regret.

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

...to invent is to discover that we know not, and not to recover or resummon that which we already know

He who desires solitude is either an animal or a god.