“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.”

“The Idols of Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions as well of the sense as of the mind are according to the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.”

“It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives.”

“The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.”

“The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds.”

“Nature cannot be commanded except by being obeyed.”

“Whoseoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god. Certain it is that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment.”