For friends... do but look upon good Books: they are true friends, that will neither flatter nor dissemble.

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

The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

For first of all we must prepare a Natural and Experimental History, sufficient and good; and this is the foundation of all; for we are not to imagine or suppose, but to discover, what nature does or may be made to do.

The correlative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors.

There is no doubt but men of genius and leisure may carry our method to greater perfection, but, having had long experience, we have found none equal to it for the commodiousness it affords in working with the Understanding.