Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

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

God's first creature, which was light.

You want accuracy, but not representation. If you know how to make the figuration, it doesn't work. Anything you can make, you make by accident. In painting, you have to know what you do, not how, when you do it.

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.

All superstition is much the same whether it be that of astrology, dreams, omen, retributive judgment, or the like, in all of which the deluded believers observe events which are fulfilled, but neglect and pass over their failure, though it be much more common.

Laws and Institutions Must Go Hand in Hand with the Progress of the Human Mind.