...to invent is to discover that we know not, and not to recover or resummon that which we already know

For many parts of Nature can neither be invented with sufficient subtlety, nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity, nor accommodated unto use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and intervening of the mathematics, of which sort are perspective, music, astronomy, cosmography, architecture, engineery, and divers others.

We see then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities have been decayed and demolished?

For what a man would like to be true, that he more readily believes.

There ought to be gardens for all months in the year, in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season.

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

Art is man added to Nature.