Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.

Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.

God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.

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.

Knowledge is power.

Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.

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.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.

I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.

It is impossible to love and to be wise.

By indignities men come to dignities.

Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.

If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.

But men must know, that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.

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.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

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.

The worst men often give the best advice.

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread.

God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Friends are thieves of time.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness, as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns: children, women, old folks, sick folks.

Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.

Acorns were good until bread was found.

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.

I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.