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

I concluded that I might take as a general rule the principle that all things which we very clearly and obviously conceive are true: only observing, however, that there is some difficulty in rightly determining the objects which we distinctly conceive.

He who hid well, lived well.

Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess.

I know that I exist; the question is, What is this 'I' that 'I' know.

It's the familiar love-hate syndrome of seduction: "I don't really care what it is I say, I care only that you like it."

In the matter of a difficult question it is more likely that the truth should have been discovered by the few than by the many.