“Men are most apt to believe what they least understand; and through the lust of human wit obscure things are more easily credited.”

On a farm the best fertilizer is the master’s eye.

True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, and writing what deserves to be read.

Such is the audacity of man, that he hath learned to counterfeit Nature, yea, and is so bold as to challenge her in her work.

True happiness consists in being considered deserving of it.

Wine maketh the band quivering, the eye watery, the night unquiet, lewd dreams, a stinking breath in the morning, and an utter forgetfulness of all things.

Among these things, one thing seems certain – that nothing certain exists and that there is nothing more pitiful or more presumptuous than man.

The most disgraceful cause of the scarcity [of remedies] is that even those who know them do not want to point them out, as if they were going to lose what they pass on to others.

We ought to be guarded against every appearance of envy, as a passion that always implies inferiority wherever it resides.

The desire to know a thing is heightened by its gratification being deferred.

The only certainty is uncertainty

Better do nothing than do ill.

The best kind of wine is that which is most pleasant to him who drinks it.

Let that which is wanting in income be supplied by economy.

War should neither be feared nor provoked.

As land is improved by sowing it with various seeds, so is the mind by exercising it with different studies.

As for the garden of mint, the very smell of it alone recovers and refreshes our spirits, as the taste stirs up our appetite for meat.

The desire to know a thing is heightened by its gratification being deferred.

The lust of fame is the last that a wise man shakes off.

There are many who lust for the simple answers of doctrine or decree. They are on the left and right. They are not confined to a single part of the society. They are terrorists of the mind.

The love of fame is the last weakness which even the wise resign.

The lust for power, for dominating others, inflames the heart more than any other passion.

The love of dominion is the most engrossing passion.

No hatred is so bitter as that of near relations.

The lust of dominion burns with a flame so fierce as to overpower all other affections of the human breast.