Gardening is the purest of human pleasures.

There is no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and onsets of things.

Truth ... is the sovereign good of human nature.

Before I start painting I have a slightly ambiguous feeling: happiness is a special excitement because unhappiness is always possible a moment later.

The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all as things now are with slight endeavour and scanty success.

Always let losers have their words.

I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.