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

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.

Books must follow sciences and not sciences books.

Money is a great servant but a bad master.

There is no exquisite beauty, without some strangeness in the proportion.

Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.

To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none.

Age appears best in four things: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read.

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

Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.

Nature cannot be commanded except by being obeyed.

In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior

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

God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

The less people speak of their greatness, the more we think of it.

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

Criticism is easy; achievement is difficult.

If I had stayed for other people to make my tools and things for me, I had never made anything.

Anyone who has lost something they thought was theirs forever finally comes to realise that nothing really belongs to them.

It was strange how your brain could know what your heart refused to accept.

Do what is easy and your life will be hard. Do what is hard and your life will become easy.

You are what you believe yourself to be.

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

A light heart lives long.