The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only.
War consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known.
The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.
Prudence is but experience, which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.
A man's conscience and his judgment is the same thing; and as the judgment, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.
Curiosity is the lust of the mind.
Desire to know why, and how -- curiosity, which is a lust of the mind, that a perseverance of delight in the continued and indefatigable generation of knowledge -- exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.
I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.
The flesh endures the storms of the present alone; the mind, those of the past and future as well as the present. Gluttony is a lust of the mind.
Sudden glory is the passion which makes those grimaces called laughter.
Man is distinguished, not only by his reason; but also by this singular passion from other animals... which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of knowledge, exceeds the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.
Leisure is the mother of Philosophy.
No mans error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.
He that is taken and put into prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome; for he is still an enemy.
In the state of nature profit is the measure of right.
For it is with the mysteries of our religion, as with wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure; but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect.
Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.
The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.
The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them.
There is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense.
Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.
Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues.
Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves.
Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools.
Words are the money of fools.