I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.

During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.

Can it then be doubted, but that God, who is infinitely fine Spirit, and withal intelligent, can make and change all species and kind of body as he pleaseth? But I dare not say, that this is the way by which God Almighty worketh, because it is past my apprehension: yet it serves very well to demonstrate, that the omnipotence of God implieth no contradiction.

The first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method.

By how much one man has more experience of things past, than another, by so much also he is more prudent, and his expectations the seldomer fail him.

[Necessity is] the sum of all things, which being now existent, conduce and concur to the production of that action hereafter, whereof if any one thing now were wanting, the effect could not be produced. This concourse of causes, whereof every one is determined to be such as it is by a like concourse of former causes, may well be called (in respect they were all set and ordered by the eternal causes of all things, God Almighty) the decree of God.

Sudden glory is the passion which maketh those grimaces called laughter.