But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men.

First therefore let us seek the dignity of knowledge in the archetype or first platform, which is in the attributes and acts of God, as far as they are revealed to man and may be observed with sobriety; wherein we may not seek it by the name of Learning; for all Learning is Knowledge acquired, and all Knowledge in God is original: and therefore we must look for it by another name, that of Wisdom or Sapience, as the Scriptures call it.

The only hope [of science] ... is in genuine induction.

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.

Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in science by reverence for antiquity, by the authority of men counted great in philosophy, and then by general consent.

He that plots to be the only figure among ciphers [zeros], is the decay of the whole age.

I work for posterity, these things requiring ages for their accomplishment.