Do not wonder if the common people speak more truly than those above them: they speak more safely.

One of the Seven [wise men of Greece] was wont to say: That laws were like cobwebs, where the small flies are caught and the great break through.

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

It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active.

In civil business; what first? boldness; what second and third? boldness: and yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness.

Nevertheless if any skillful Servant of Nature shall bring force to bear on matter, and shall vex it and drive it to extremities as if with the purpose of reducing it to nothing, then will matter (since annihilation or true destruction is not possible except by the omnipotence of God) finding itself in these straits, turn and transform itself into strange shapes, passing from one change to another till it has gone through the whole circle and finished the period.

But men must know, that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.