Another argument of hope may be drawn from this-that some of the inventions already known are such as before they were discovered it could hardly have entered any man's head to think of; they would have been simply set aside as impossible. For in conjecturing what may be men set before them the example of what has been, and divine of the new with an imagination preoccupied and colored by the old; which way of forming opinions is very fallacious, for streams that are drawn from the springheads of nature do not always run in the old channels.

There is a cunning which we in England call "the turning of the cat" in the pan; which is, when that which a man says to another, he says it as if another had said it to him.

Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.

Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

In charity there is no excess.

It has well been said that the arch-flatterer, with whom all petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man's self.

A forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread it out.