Philosophers make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high.

The genius of any single man can no more equal learning, than a private purse hold way with the exchequer.

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.

That conceit, elegantly expressed by the Emperor Charles V., in his instructions to the King, his son, "that fortune hath somewhat the nature of a woman, that if she be too much wooed she is the farther off.

It is madness and a contradiction to expect that things which were never yet performed should be effected, except by means hitherto untried.

For knowledge, too, is itself power.

That which above all other yields the sweetest smell in the air is the violet.