I have found that, in the composition of the human body as compared with the bodies of animals, the organs of sense are duller and coarser. Thus, it is composed of less ingenious instruments, and of spaces less capacious for receiving the faculties of sense.

When counting, try not to mix chickens with blessings.

A painter was asked why, since he made such beautiful figures, which were but dead things, his children were so ugly; to which the painter replied that he made his pictures by day, and his children by night.

Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.

Things severed shall be united and shall acquire of themselves such virtue that they shall restore to men their lost memory: That is the papyrus sheets, which are formed out of several strips and preserve the memory of the thoughts and deeds of men.

The imagination is to the effect as the shadow to the opaque body which causes the shadow.

Men standing in opposite hemispheres will converse and deride each other and embrace each other, and understand each other’s language.

Slender certainty is better than portentous falsehood.

A natural action is accomplished in the briefest manner.

For youth, everything is sport.