There is superstition in avoiding superstition.

There arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind.

For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast.

The nature of things betrays itself more readily under the vexations of art than in its natural freedom.

the serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself.

The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds. And though there be many things in nature which are singular and unmatched, yet it devises for them parallels and conjugates and relatives which do not exist. Hence the fiction that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles, spirals and dragons being (except in name) utterly rejected.

Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body, and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.