It Is In Life As It Is

Again There Is Another Great And Powerful Cause Why The Sciences Have Made But Little Progress; Which Is This. It Is Not Possible To Run A Course Aright When The Goal Itself Has Not Been Rightly Placed.

Medicine Is A Science Which Hath Been (as We Have Said) More Professed Than Laboured, And Yet More Laboured Than Advanced: The Labour Having Been, In My Judgment, Rather In Circle Than In Progression. For I Find Much Iteration, But Small Addition. It Considereth Causes Of Diseases, With The Occasions Or Impulsions; The Diseases Themselves, With The Accidents; And The Cures, With The Preservation.

The Human Understanding, When Any Preposition Has Been Once Laid Down... Forces Everything Else To Add Fresh Support And Confirmation; And Although More Cogent And Abundant Instances May Exist To The Contrary, Yet It Either Does Not Observe Them Or It Despises Them, Or It Gets Rid Of And Rejects Them By Some Distinction, With Violent And Injurious Prejudice, Rather Than Sacrifice The Authority Of Its First Conclusions.

He That Plots To Be The Only Figure Among Ciphers [zeros], Is The Decay Of The Whole Age.

Nothing Is More Pleasant To The Eye Than Green Grass Kept Finely Shorn.