Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it.

There is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death . . . Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it.

Disciples do owe their masters only a temporary belief, and a suspension of their own judgment till they be fully instructed.

Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.

We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.

For many parts of Nature can neither be invented with sufficient subtlety, nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity, nor accommodated unto use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and intervening of the mathematics, of which sort are perspective, music, astronomy, cosmography, architecture, engineery, and divers others.