Have you been able to think out and manage your own life? You have done the greatest task of all.... All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.

Report followeth not all goodness, except difficulty and rarity be joined thereto.

Learning is a good medicine: but no medicine is powerful enough to preserve itself from taint and corruption independently of defects in the jar that it is kept in. One man sees clearly but does not see straight: consequently he sees what is good but fails to follow it; he sees knowledge and does not use it.

When I was young, beautiful ancient statues were castrated, so that the eye might not be corrupted.... Nothing was gained, unless horses and asses had also been castrated.

What kind of truth is this which is true on one side of a mountain and false on the other?

I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.

We seem ambitious God's whole work to undo. ...With new diseases on ourselves we war, And with new physic, a worse engine far.