Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

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.

For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.

People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.

Many secrets of art and nature are thought by the unlearned to be magical.

For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocence, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.

I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends, as I have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province.