Quote collection
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"There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self."
"Truth can never be reached by just listening to the voice of an authority."
"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator."
"Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing."
"No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth."
"The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall: but in charity there is no excess; neither can angel nor man come in danger by it."
"Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other."
"By far the best proof is experience."
"Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes."
"It is a great happiness when men's professions and their inclinations accord."
"He that cometh to seek after knowledge, with a mind to scorn, shall be sure to find matter for his humour, but no matter for his instruction."
"Since my logic aims to teach and instruct the understanding, not that it may with the slender tendrils of the mind snatch at and lay hold of abstract notions (as the common logic does), but that it may in very truth dissect nature, and discover the virtues and actions of bodies, with their laws as determined in matter; so that this science flows not merely from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things."
"Acorns were good until bread was found."
"Those herbs which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but, being trodden upon and crushed, are three; that is, burnet, wild thyme and watermints. Therefore, you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread."
"It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself."
"It is impossible to love and to be wise."
"Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom."
"The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds. And though there be many things in nature which are singular and unmatched, yet it devises for them parallels and conjugates and relatives which do not exist. Hence the fiction that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles, spirals and dragons being (except in name) utterly rejected."
"For no man can forbid the spark nor tell whence it may come."
"I have to hope that my instincts will do the right thing, because I can't erase what I have done. And if I drew something first, then my paintings would be illustrations of drawings."