Thus there are two books from whence I collect my Divinity; besides that written one of God, another of his servant Nature, that universal and public Manuscript, that lies expans'd unto the eyes of all; those that never saw him in the one, have discovered him in the other.

Oblivion is not to be hired.

There are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that cannot read may read our natures.

They do most by Books, who could do much without them, and he that chiefly owes himself unto himself, is the substantial Man.

Natura nihil agit frustra [Nature does nothing in vain] is the only indisputible axiom in philosophy. There are no grotesques in nature; not any thing framed to fill up empty cantons, and unncecessary spaces.

Nor do they speak properly who say that time consumeth all things; for time is not effective, nor are bodies destroyed by it.

I cannot tell by what logic we call a toad, a bear, or an elephant ugly; they being created in those outward shapes and figures which best express the actions of their inward forms.