It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.

Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.

Leisure is the Mother of Philosophy.

No man's error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it.

Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation.

Prudence is but experience, which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.

In the state of nature profit is the measure of right.

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.

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.

Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.

I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.

Such truth, as opposeth no man's profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome.

He that is taken and put into prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome; for he is still an enemy.

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.

Fear of things invisible in the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion.