There is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense.

The Enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance, and sown the tares of spiritual errors.

The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done.

There is more in Mersenne than in all the universities together.

Leisure can be one of the Mothers of Philosophy.

The original of all great and lasting societies consisted not in the mutual good will men had toward each other, but in the mutual fear they had of each other.

War consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known.