The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only.

Competition of praise inclineth to a reverence of antiquity. For men contend with the living, not with the dead.

The cause of Sense, is the External Body, or Object, which presseth the organ proper to each Sense, either immediately, as in theTaste and Touch; or mediately, as in Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling: which pressure, by the mediation of Nerves, and other strings, and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the Brain, and Heart, causeth there a resistance, or counter- pressure, or endeavor of the heart, to deliver it self: which endeavor because Outward, seemeth to be some matter without.

Curiosity draws a man from consideration of the effect, to seek the cause.

Prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past.

Religions are like pills, which must be swallowed whole without chewing.

Nature (the Art whereby God hath made and governs the World) is by the Art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an Artificial Animal. For seeing life is but a motion of Limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within; why may we not say, that all Automata (Engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life?