The true bounds and limitations, whereby human knowledge is confined and circumscribed,... are three: the first, that we do not so place our felicity in knowledge, as we forget our mortality: the second, that we make application of our knowledge, to give ourselves repose and contentment, and not distates or repining: the third, that we do not presume by the contemplation of Nature to attain to the mysteries of God.

If I sit and daydream, the images rush by like a succession of colored slides.

It is nothing won to admit men with an open door, and to receive them with a shut and reserved countenance.

It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.

Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second. For there is a youth in thoughts, as well as in ages. And yet the invention of young men, is more lively than that of old; and imaginations stream into their minds better, and, as it were, more divinely.

Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.

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