"I can look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of a horse. It is my temper, & I like it the better, to affect all harmony, and sure there is music even in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument. For there is a music wherever there is a harmony, order or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres."

"I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vulgar act of coition; It is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life, nor is there anything that will more deject his cooled imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath committed."

"But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world, yet is every man his greatest enemy, and as it were, his own executioner."

"No man can justly censure or condemn another, because indeed no man truly knows another."

"They that endeavour to abolish vice destroy also virtue, for contraries, though they destroy one another, are yet the life of one another."

"I intend no Monopoly, but a Community in Learning; I study not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves."

"There is surely a Physiognomy, which those experienced and Master Mendicants observe… For there are mystically in our faces certain Characters that carry in them the motto of our Souls, wherein he that cannot read A.B.C. may read our natures."

"It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million of faces there should be none alike."

"There is no road or ready way to virtue."

"The heart of man is the place the devil dwells in; I feel sometimes a hell within myself."

"How shall the dead arise, is no question of my faith; to believe only possibilities, is not faith, but mere philosophy."

"I believe the world grows near its end, yet is neither old nor decayed, nor will ever perish upon the ruins of its own principles."

"We vainly accuse the fury of guns, and the new inventions of death; it is in the power of every hand to destroy us, and we are beholden unto every one we meet he doth not kill us."

"Men that look no further than their outsides, think health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel with their constitutions for being sick; but I that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that fabric hangs, do wonder that we are not always so; and considering the thousand doors that lead to death, do thank my God that we can die but once."

"I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof; 'tis the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us that our nearest friends, Wife, and Children stand afraid and start at us."

"This reasonable moderator, and equal piece of justice, Death."

"Thus is man that great and true Amphibium, whose nature is disposed to live not only like other creatures in diverse elements, but in divided and distinguished worlds."

"Persecution is a bad and indirect way to plant Religion."

"Obstinacy in a bad cause, is but constancy in a good."

"All things are artificial, for nature is the Art of God."

"Art is the perfection of nature."

"We carry with us the wonders, we seek without us: There is all Africa, and her prodigies in us; we are that bold and adventurous piece of nature, which he that studies, wisely learns in a compendium, what others labour at in a divided piece and endless volume."

"The severe Schools shall never laugh me out of the Philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible."

"I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret Magic of numbers."

"I love to lose myself in a mystery to pursue my reason to an O altitudo."

"Rich with the spoils of Nature."

"A man may be in as just possession of Truth as of a City, and yet be forced to surrender."

"I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgement for not agreeing with me in that, from which perhaps within a few days I should dissent myself."

"Who will not commend the wit of astrology? Venus, born out of the sea, hath her exaltation in Pisces."

"When we desire to confine our words, we commonly say they are spoken under the rose."

"I shall stay him no longer than to wish him a rainy evening to read this following discourse; and that if he be an honest angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a-fishing."

"As no man is born an artist, so no man is born an angler."

"Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics that it can never be fully learnt."

"Of which, if thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge."

"I have laid aside business, and gone a-fishing."

"God has two dwellings — one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart."

"The great secretary of Nature and all learning, Sir Francis Bacon."

"For love is a flattering mischief, that hath denied aged and wise men a foresight of those evils that too often prove to be the children of that blind father; a passion, that carries us to commit errors with as much ease as whirlwinds move feathers, and begets in us an unwearied industry to the attainment of what we desire."

"But God, who is able to prevail, wrestled with him, as the Angel did with Jacob, and marked him; marked him for his own; marked him with a blessing, a blessing of obedience to the motions of his blessed Spirit."

"Oh, the gallant fisher's life! It is the best of any; 'T is full of pleasure, void of strife, And 't is beloved by many."

"Let the blessing of St. Peter's Master be...upon all that are lovers of virtue, and dare trust in his Providence, and be quiet and go a-angling."

"Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy."

"This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men."

"Thus use your frog...Put your hook through his mouth, and out at his gills;...and then with a fine needle and silk sew the upper part of his leg, with only one stitch, to the arming-wire of your hook; or tie the frog's leg, above the upper joint, to the armed-wire; and in so doing use him as though you loved him."