Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Disciples do owe their masters only a temporary belief, and a suspension of their own judgment till they be fully instructed.
It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.
There was never miracle wrought by God to convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a God.
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.
Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
Mark what a generosity and courage (a dog) will put on when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a God
Certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.
In civil business; what first? boldness; what second and third? boldness: and yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness.
It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives
Vain-glorious men are the scorn of the wise, the admiration of fools, the idols of paradise, and the slaves of their own vaunts.
To be free minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one of the best precepts of long lasting.
Nothing opens the heart like a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes...and whatever lies upon the heart.
I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends, as I have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province.
Some paint comes across directly onto the nervous system and other paint tells you the story in a long diatribe through the brain.
But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation.
For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast.
The human understanding of its own nature is prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds.
Be not penny-wise. Riches have wings. Sometimes they fly away of themselves, and sometimes they must be set flying to bring in more.
Parents who wish to train up their children in the way they should go must go in the way in which they would have their children go.
When a doubt is once received, men labour rather how to keep it a doubt still, than how to solve it; and accordingly bend their wits.
In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not look to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.
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.
All painting is an accident. But it's also not an accident, because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve.
In mathematics I can report no deficiency, except it be that men do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of Pure Mathematics.
The errors of young men are the ruin of business, but the errors of aged men amount to this, that more might have been done, or sooner.
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
Even within the most beautiful landscape, in the trees, under the leaves the insects are eating each other; violence is a part of life.
For fountains, they are a Great Beauty and Refreshment, but Pools mar all, and make the Garden unwholesome, and full of Flies and Frogs.
That things are changed, and that nothing really perishes, and that the sum of matter remains exactly the same, is sufficiently certain.
Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.
If you dissemble sometimes your knowledge of that you are thought to know, you shall be thought, another time, to know that you know not.
I knew a wise man that had it for a by-word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, "Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner."
The human understanding, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater degree of order and equality in things than it really finds.
I should have been, I don't know, a con-man, a robber or a prostitute. But it was vanity that made me choose painting, vanity and chance.
Observation and experiment for gathering material, induction and deduction for elaborating it: these are are only good intellectual tools.
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
The divisions of science are not like different lines that meet in one angle, but rather like the branches of trees that join in one trunk.
Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon.
It is madness and a contradiction to expect that things which were never yet performed should be effected, except by means hitherto untried.
If a man's wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores, splitters of hairs.
Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.
For whatever deserves to exist deserves also to be known, for knowledge is the image of existence, and things mean and splendid exist alike.
He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry? 'A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.'
Defer not charities till death; for certainly, if a man weigh it rightly, he that doth so is rather liberal of another man's than of his own.
Atheism leads a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue.
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.
Let every student of nature take this as his rule, that whatever the mind seizes upon with particular satisfaction is to be held in suspicion.
Riches are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions; therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion.
Men seem neither to understand their riches nor their strength. Of the former they believe greater things than they should; of the latter, less.