If there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire.

The divisions of science are not like different lines that meet in one angle, but rather like the branches of trees that join in one trunk.

Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly.

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.

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.

Men seem neither to understand their riches nor their strength. Of the former they believe greater things than they should; of the latter, less.