It is impossible to love and to be wise.

If my people look as if they're in a dreadful fix, it's because I can't get them out of a technical dilemma.

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.

Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in science by reverence for antiquity, by the authority of men counted great in philosophy, and then by general consent.

Even within the most beautiful landscape, in the trees, under the leaves the insects are eating each other; violence is a part of life.

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

I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him. If I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.