The partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch not in a point; but are like branches of a tree, that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance, before it come to discontinue and break itself into arms and boughs.
Above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is Nunc dimittis, when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy.
Lukewarm persons think they may accommodate points of religion by middle ways and witty reconcilements,--as if they would make an arbitrament between God and man.
Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand - and melting like a snowflake.
That conceit, elegantly expressed by the Emperor Charles V., in his instructions to the King, his son, "that fortune hath somewhat the nature of a woman, that if she be too much wooed she is the farther off.
As you work, the mood grows on you. There are certain images which suddenly get hold of me and I really want to do them. But it's true to say that the excitement and possibilities are in the working and obviously can only come in the working.
But by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this-that men despair and think things impossible.