The insufferable arrogance of human beings to think that Nature was made solely for their benefit, as if it was conceivable that the sun had been set afire merely to ripen men's apples and head their cabbages.

We must believe then, that as from hence we see Saturn and Jupiter if we were in either of the Two, we should discover a great many Worlds which we perceive not and that the Universe extends so in infinitum.

To tell the truth, the chariot was an astonishing sight to behold, because I had polished the steel of my flying house so carefully that it reflected the sunlight on all sides. It was so bright and dazzling that I thought, myself, that I had been carried away in a chariot of fire.

Luckless is the country in which the symbols of procreation are the objects of shame, while the agents of destruction are honored! And yet you call that member your pudendum, or shameful part, as if there were anything more glorious than creating life, or anything more atrocious than taking it away.

Perish the universe, provided I have my revenge!

This veridic nose arrives everywhere a quarter of an hour before its master. Ten shoemakers, good round fat ones too, go and sit down to work under it out of the rain.

A man contains all that is needed to make up a tree likewise, a tree contains all that is needed to make up a man. Thus, finally, all things meet in all things, but we need a Prometheus to distill it.

Well - when I write my book, and tell the tale Of my adventures - all these little stars That shake out of my cloak - I must save those To use for asterisks.

I planted my self in the middle of a great many Glasses full of Dew, tied fast about me, upon which the Sun so violently darted his Rays, that the Heat, which attracted them, as it does the thickest Clouds, carried me up so high, that at length I found my self above the middle Region of the Air.

The people of your world became so stupid and rude that my companions and I no longer enjoyed teaching them. You must surely have heard of us: we were called oracles, nymphs, spirits, fairies, household gods, lemures, larvas, lamias, sprites, water-nymphs, incubi, shades, spirits of the dead, specters and ghosts.

For an Apple is in it self a little Universe the Seed, hotter than the other parts thereof, is its Sun, which diffuses about it self that natural Heat which preserves its Globe: And in the Onion, the Germ is the little Sun of that little World, which vivifies and nourishes the vegetative Salt of that little mass.

'And for my part, Gentlemen,' said I, 'that I may put in for a share, and guess with the rest not to amuse myself with those curious Notions wherewith you tickle and spur on slow-paced Time I believe, that the Moon is a World like ours, to which this of ours serves likewise for a Moon.'

Prometheus heretofore went up to Heaven, and stole fire from thence. Have not I as much Boldness as he?