Ay, do despise me, I'm the prouder for it; I like to be despised.

Every age might perhaps produce one or two geniuses, if they were not sunk under the censure and obloquy of plodding, servile, imitating pedants.

It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end.

I never knew any man cured of inattention.

Wisdom is a fox who, after long hunting, will at last cost you the pains to dig out; it is a cheese, which, by how much the richer, has the thicker, the homlier, and the coarser coat; and whereof to a judicious palate, the maggots are best. It is a sack posset, wherein the deeper you go, you'll find it the sweeter. Wisdom is a hen, whose cackling we must value and consider, because it is attended with an egg. But lastly, it is a nut, which, unless you choose with judgment, may cost you a tooth, and pay you with nothing but a worm.

Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.

Words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind.