“By this the Earth it self, which lyes so near us, under our feet, shews quite a new thing to us, and in every little particle of its matter, we now behold almost as great a variety of Creatures, as we were able before to reckon up in the Whole Universe itself.””

The variety of disasters that can occur to us is so enormous that we tend to preserve our sanity by not thinking about most of them.”

Nature is, as it were, a continual circulation. Water is rais’d in Vapour into the Air by one Quality and precipitated down in drops by another, the Rivers run into the Sea, and the Sea again supplies them.

History is supposed to teach us how to deal with the present and future, but it doesn’t do that if we look at it merely as a record of events.”

From the Leaves, and Downs, and Beards of Plants, we come at last to the Seeds; and here indeed seems to be the Cabinet of Nature, wherein are laid up its Jewels.”

By the help of microscopes, there is nothing so small, as to escape our inquiry; hence there is a new visible world discovered to the understanding.

It is said of great Empires, That the best way to preserve them from decay, is to bring them back to the first Principles, and Arts, on which they did begin.”

The business and design of the Royal Society is: To improve the knowledge of naturall things, and all useful Arts, Manufactures, Mechanic practices, Engines and Inventions by Experiments-(not meddling with Divinity, Metaphysics, Moralls, Politicks, Grammar, Rhetoric or Logick).

The truth is, the Science of Nature has been already too long made only a work of the Brain and the Fancy: It is now high time that it should return to the plainness and soundness of Observations on material and obvious things.

The Wings of all kinds of Insects, are, for the most part, very beautiful Objects, and afford no less pleasing an Object to the mind to speculate upon, then to the eye to behold.”

It is commonly believed that anyone who tabulates numbers is a statistician. This is like believing that anyone who owns a scalpel is a surgeon.

An individual who is afraid to go outdoors for fear of being hit by a meteorite is generally regarded as neurotic.

Statistics are history, and we gather them so that we can learn from history.”

Cut your morning devotions into your personal grooming. You would not go out to work with a dirty face. Why start the day with the face of your soul unwashed?”

As in Geometry, the most natural way of beginning is from a Mathematical point; so is the same method in Observations and Natural history the most genuine, simple, and instructive.

Sensible people take precautions against possible disasters, and of course one man’s idea of precaution is another man’s silly worry.

And because also there are many Objects to be met with in the night, which cannot so conveniently be kept perhaps till the day, therefore to procure and cast a sufficient quantity of light on an Object in the night, I thought of, and often used this, Expedient.

A media system wants ostensible diversity that conceals an actual uniformity

We are now at the point where we must decide whether we are to honour the concept of a plural society which gains strength through diversity, or whether we are to have bitter fragmentation that will result in perpetual tension and strife.

The dynamism of any diverse community depends not only on the diversity itself but on promoting a sense of belonging among those who formerly would have been considered and felt themselves outsiders.

Our country has often stood like a solid rock in the face of common danger, and there is a deep underlying unity which runs like a golden thread through all our seeming diversity.

The favorite device of the devil, ancient and modern, is to force a human being into a more or less artificial class, accuse the class of unnamed and unnameable sin, and then damn any individual in the alleged class, however innocent he may be.

The favorite device of the devil, ancient and modern, is to force a human being into a more or less artificial class, accuse the class of unnamed and unnameable sin, and then damn any individual in the alleged class, however innocent he may be.

The favorite device of the devil, ancient and modern, is to force a human being into a more or less artificial class, accuse the class of unnamed and unnameable sin, and then damn any individual in the alleged class, however innocent he may be.

The prolonged slavery of woman is the darkest page in human history.