The discovery of a good wine is increasingly better for mankind than the discovery of a new star.

Strive to preserve your health; and in this you will better succeed in proportion as you keep clear of the physicians, for their drugs are a kind of alchemy concerning which there are no fewer books than there are medicines.

As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.

Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occurred in experience.

There shall be wings! If the accomplishment be not for me, 'tis for some other. The spirit cannot die; and man, who shall know all and shall have wings.

It is the infinite alone that cannot be attained, for if it could it would become finite.

A single and distinct luminous body causes stronger relief in the objects than a diffused light; as may be seen by comparing one side of a landscape illuminated by the sun, and one overshadowed by clouds, and illuminated only by the diffused light of the atmosphere.