John Wilkins Quotes

'Tis certain that our senses are extremely disproportioned for comprehending the whole compass and latitude of things.

Garner up pleasant thoughts in your mind, for pleasant thoughts make pleasant lives.

Science doesn't deliver even that much "truth"; it delivers empirically adequate generalisations, and that is all we need.

It is an excellent rule to be observed in all disputes, that men should give soft words and hard arguments; that they should not so much strive to vex as to convince each other.

Yet I do seriously and on good grounds affirm it possible to make a flying chariot in which a man may sit and give such a motion unto it as shall convey him through the air. And this perhaps might be made large enough to carry divers men at the same time, together with food for their viaticum and commodities for traffic.

It is not the bigness of anything in this kind that can hinder its motion, if the motive faculty be answerable thereunto. We see a great ship swims as well as a small cork, and an eagle flies in the air as well as a little gnat. 'Tis likely enough that there may be means invented of journeying to the Moon; and how happy they shall be that are first successful in this attempt.

It's a frightening thing. To go to France, the elder daughter of the church, it's always called, and you get the feeling the church has gone away.

Obscurity in writing is commonly an argument of darkness in the mind. The greatest learning is to be seen in the greatest plainness.

Nothing is properly one's duty but what is also one's interest.