Quote collection
654 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Judges ought to be more learned, than witty, more reverend, than plausible, and more advised, than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue."
"Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men."
"The breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air than in the hand."
"When Christ came into the world, peace was sung; and when He went out of the world, peace was bequeathed."
"But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men."
"Consistency is the foundation of virtue."
"Man seeketh in society comfort, use and protection."
"The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall."
"Brutes by their natural instinct have produced many discoveries, whereas men by discussion and the conclusions of reason have given birth to few or none."
"He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief."
"All will come out in the washing."
"I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind."
"For friends... do but look upon good Books: they are true friends, that will neither flatter nor dissemble."
"There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health."
"It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active."
"The sun, though it passes through dirty places, yet remains as pure as before."
"Rebellions of the belly are the worst."
"Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God."
"I feel ever so strongly that an artist must be nourished by his passions and his despairs. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him. The feelings of desperation and unhappiness are more useful to an artist than the feeling of contentment, because desperation and unhappiness stretch your whole sensibility."
"Deformed persons commonly take revenge on nature."