I want a very ordered image, but I want it to come about by chance.

Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions.

He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.

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

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

We must see whether the same clock with weights will go faster at the top of a mountain or at the bottom of a mine; it is probable, if the pull of the weights decreases on the mountain and increases in the mine, that the earth has real attraction.