... regard this body as a machine which, having been made by the hand of God, is incomparably better ordered than any machine that can be devised by man, and contains in itself movements more wonderful than those in any machine. ... it is for all practical purposes impossible for a machine to have enough organs to make it act in all the contingencies of life in the way in which our reason makes us act.

And thereby make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.

Everybody thinks himself so well supplied with common sense that even those most difficult to please. . . never desire more of it than they already have.

How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?

It must not be thought that it is ever possible to reach the interior earth by any perseverance in mining: both because the exterior earth is too thick, in comparison with human strength; and especially because of the intermediate waters, which would gush forth with greater impetus, the deeper the place in which their veins were first opened; and which would drown all miners.

There is nothing so far removed from us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that we cannot discover it.

So far, I have been a spectator in this theater which is the world, but I am now about to mount the stage, and I come forward masked.