Silence Is The Virtue Of

It Is By Discourse That Men Associate, And Words Are Imposed According To The Apprehension Of The Vulgar. And Therefore The Ill And Unfit Choice Of Words Wonderfully Obsesses The Understanding. Nor Do The Definitions Or Explanations Wherewith In Some Things Learned Men Are Wont To Guard And Defend Themselves, By Any Means Set The Matter Right. But Words Plainly Force And Overrule The Understanding, And Throw All Into Confusion, And Lead Men Away Into Innumerable And Inane Controversies And Fancies.

By Indignities Men Come To Dignities.

The Great Advantages Of Simulation And Dissimulation Are Three. First To Lay Asleep Opposition And To Surprise. For Where A Man's Intentions Are Published, It Is An Alarum To Call Up All That Are Against Them. The Second Is To Reserve A Man's Self A Fair Retreat: For If A Man Engage Himself, By A Manifest Declaration, He Must Go Through, Or Take A Fall. The Third Is, The Better To Discover The Mind Of Another. For To Him That Opens Himself, Men Will Hardly Show Themselves Adverse; But Will Fair Let Him Go On, And Turn Their Freedom Of Speech To Freedom Of Thought.

The Human Understanding When It Has Once Adopted An Opinion (either As Being The Received Opinion Or As Being Agreeable To Itself) Draws All Things Else To Support And Agree With It. And Though There Be A Greater Number And Weight Of Instances To Be Found On The Other Side, Yet These It Either Neglects And Despises, Or Else By Some Distinction Sets Aside And Rejects, In Order That By This Great And Pernicious Predetermination The Authority Of Its Former Conclusions May Remain Inviolate.

I Foresee It And Yet I Hardly Ever Carry It Out As I Foresee It. It Transforms Itself By The Actual Paint. I Don't In Fact Know Very Often What The Paint Will Do, And It Does Many Things Which Are Very Much Better Than I Could Make It Do.