It is nothing won to admit men with an open door, and to receive them with a shut and reserved countenance.

The eye of understanding is like the eye of the sense; for as you may see great objects through small crannies or levels, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances.

The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course, it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.

A cat will never drown if she sees the shore.

Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.

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

Excusations, cessions, modesty itself well governed, are but arts of ostentation.