It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.

Learning hath his infancy, when it is but beginning and almost childish; then his youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile; then his strength of years, when it is solid and reduced; and lastly his old age, when it waxeth dry and exhaust.

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

The noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men, which have sought to express the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed.

Men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts.