All superstition is much the same whether it be that of astrology, dreams, omen, retributive judgment, or the like, in all of which the deluded believers observe events which are fulfilled, but neglect and pass over their failure, though it be much more common.

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

Parents who wish to train up their children in the way they should go must go in the way in which they would have their children go.

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

The lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes the wrong one.

But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses; in that things which strike the sense outweigh things which do not immediately strike it, though they be more important. Hence it is that speculation commonly ceases where sight ceases; insomuch that of things invisible there is little or no observation.

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