Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread.

Mark what a generosity and courage (a dog) will put on when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a God

All bravery stands upon comparisons.

Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.

The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded.

Take an arrow, and hold it in flame for the space of ten pulses, and when it cometh forth you shall find those parts of the arrow which were on the outsides of the flame more burned, blacked, and turned almost to coal, whereas the midst of the flame will be as if the fire had scarce touched it. This is an instance of great consequence for the discovery of the nature of flame; and sheweth manifestly, that flame burneth more violently towards the sides than in the midst.

They who derive their worth from their ancestors resemble potatoes, the most valuable part of which is underground.