"The contemplation of things as they are, without superstition or imposture, without error or confusion, is in itself a nobler thing than a whole harvest of invention."

"All colors will agree in the dark."

"Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do …"

"The mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of supe…"

"For the sense is a thing infirm and erring, and the mind is a thing variable and full of perturbation, and governed as it were by chance."