“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

“Solomon saith, 'He that considereth the wind, shall not sow, and he that looketh to the clouds, shall not reap.' A wise man will make more opportunities, than he finds.”

“Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to know which he doth not.”

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

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

“I would address one general admonition to all, that they consider what are the true ends of knowledge, and that they seek it not either for pleasure of the mind, or for contention, or for superiority to others, or for profit, or for fame, or power, or any of these inferior things, but for the benefit and use of life; and that they perfect and govern it in charity. For it was from lust of power that the Angels fell, from lust of knowledge that man fell, but of charity there can be no excess, neither did angel or man come in danger by it.”

“Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.”