We term sleep a death by which we may be literally said to die daily; in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers.

... indeed, what reason may not go to school to the wisdom of bees, ants, and spiders? What wise hand teacheth them to do what reason cannot teach us? Ruder heads stand amazed at those prodigious pieces of nature, whales, elephants, dromedaries, and camels; these, I confess, are the colossuses and majestick pieces of her hand; but in these narrow engines there is more curious mathematieks; and the civility of these little Citizens more neatly sets forth the wisdom of their Maker.

A little water makes a sea, a small puff of wind a Tempest.

If there be any among those common objects of hatred I do contemn and laugh at, it is that great enemy of reason, virtue, and religion, the multitude; that numerous piece of monstrosity, which, taken asunder, seem men, and the reasonable creatures of God, but, confused together, make but one great beast, and a monstrosity more prodigious than Hydra.

I would not live over my hours past ... not unto Cicero's ground because I have lived them well, but for fear I should live them worse.

The world, which took six days to make, is likely to take us six thousand years to make out.

A man is never alone, not only because he is with himself and his own thoughts, but because he is with the Devil, who ever consorts with our solitude.