Francis Bacon

“Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.”

“"You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God" This canon is the mother of all canons against heresy; the causes of error are two; the ignorance of the will of God, and the ignorance or not sufficient consideration of his power.”

“But men must know, that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.”

“If thou shalt aspire after the glorious acts of men, thy working shall be accompanied with compunction and strife, and thy remembrance followed with distaste and upbraidings; and justly doth it come to pass towards thee, O man, that since thou, which art God's work, doest him no reason in yielding him well-pleasing service, even thine own works also should reward thee with the like fruit of bitterness.”

“Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.”

“For a man to love again where he is loved, it is the charity of publicans contracted by mutual profit and good offices; but to love a man's enemies is one of the cunningest points of the law of Christ, and an imitation of the divine nature.”

“Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.”

“For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself.”

“By indignities men come to dignities.”

“Let great authors have their due, as time, which is the author of authors, be not deprived of his due, which is, further and further to discover truth.”

“The worst men often give the best advice.”

“Time, which is the author of authors.”

“Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted... but to weigh and consider.”

“The two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation: If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.”

“Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.”

“Antiquitas saeculi juventus mundi. [The age of antiquity is the youth of the world.] These times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient ordine retrogrado, by a computation backward from ourselves.”

“There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.”

“The sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before.”

“The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.”

“Sacred and inspired divinity, the sabaoth and port of all men's labours and peregrinations.”

“The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.”

“Cleanness of body was ever deemed to proceed from a due reverence to God.”

“It is impossible to love and to be wise.”

“Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.”

“States as great engines move slowly.”

“I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.”

“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.”

“Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.”

“But men must know that in this theater of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.”

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.”

“We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.”

“A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.”

“The obliteration of the evil hath been practised by two means, some kind of redemption or expiation of that which is past, and an inception or account de novo for the time to come. But this part seemeth sacred and religious, and justly; for all good moral philosophy (as was said) is but a handmaid to religion.”

“Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.”

“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.”

“Only charity admitteth no excess. For so we see, aspiring to be like God in power, the angels transgressed and fell; Ascendam, et ero similis altissimo: by aspiring to be like God in knowledge, man transgressed and fell; Eritis sicut Dii, scientes bonum et malum: but by aspiring to a similitude of God in goodness or love, neither man nor angel ever transgressed, or shall transgress.”

“Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.”

“For man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection: and they be three wisdoms of divers natures, which do often sever: wisdom of the behaviour, wisdom of business, and wisdom of state.”

“The great end of life is not knowledge but action.”

“I could not be true and constant to the argument I handle, if I were not willing to go beyond others; but yet not more willing than to have others go beyond me again: which may the better appear by this, that I have propounded my opinions naked and unarmed, not seeking to preoccupate the liberty of men's judgments by confutations.”

“Friends are thieves of time.”

“For the inquisition of Final Causes is barren, and like a virgin consecrated to God produces nothing.”

“We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.”

“Silence is the virtue of a fool.”

“He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.”

“As we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of causes, and productions of effects: so that part which concerneth the inquiry of causes we do subdivide according to the received and sound division of causes. The one part, which is physic, inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes; and the other, which is metaphysic, handleth the formal and final causes.”

“Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.”

“Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our Saviour came into the world; for our Saviour himself did first show His power to subdue ignorance, by His conference with the priests and doctors of the law, before He showed His power to subdue nature by His miracles. And the coming of this Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and expressed in the similitude and gift of tongues, which are but vehicula scientiæ.”

“Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.”

“We are wont to call that human reasoning which we apply to Nature the anticipation of Nature (as being rash and premature) and that which is properly deduced from things the interpretation of Nature.”

“It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.”

“Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature. Beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.”

“Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.”

“Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.”

“It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.”

“The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search for truth. So it does more harm than good.”

“Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.”

“The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this — that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.”

“There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine. That is to say, between certain empty dogmas, and the true signatures and marks set upon the works of creation as they are found in nature.”

“It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active.”

“There are four classes of Idols which beset men's minds. To these for distinction's sake I have assigned names — calling the first class, Idols of the Tribe; the second, Idols of the Cave; the third, Idols of the Market-Place; the fourth, Idols of the Theater.”

“Lastly, there are Idols which have immigrated into men's minds from the various dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call Idols of the Theater, because in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion.”

“The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds. And though there be many things in nature which are singular and unmatched, yet it devises for them parallels and conjugates and relatives which do not exist. Hence the fiction that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles, spirals and dragons being (except in name) utterly rejected.”

“…it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives…”

“The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded.”

“Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.”

“The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond... But he is no less an unskilled and shallow philosopher who seeks causes of that which is most general, than he who in things subordinate and subaltern omits to do so.”

“But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses; in that things which strike the sense outweigh things which do not immediately strike it, though they be more important. Hence it is that speculation commonly ceases where sight ceases; insomuch that of things invisible there is little or no observation.”

“But the best demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual experiment.”

“In the same manner as we are cautioned by religion to show our faith by our works we may very properly apply the principle to philosophy, and judge of it by its works; accounting that to be futile which is unproductive, and still more so, if instead of grapes and olives it yield but the thistle and thorns of dispute and contention.”

“It is not possible to run a course aright when the goal itself has not been rightly placed.”

“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.”

“No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common notions, and to apply the understanding, thus made fair and even, to a fresh examination of particulars. Thus it happens that human knowledge, as we have it, is a mere medley and ill-digested mass, made up of much credulity and much accident, and also of the childish notions which we at first imbibed.”

“There is another ground of hope that must not be omitted. Let men but think over their infinite expenditure of understanding, time, and means on matters and pursuits of far less use and value; whereof, if but a small part were directed to sound and solid studies, there is no difficulty that might not be overcome.”

“Let men learn (as we have said above) the difference that exists between the idols of the human mind, and the ideas of the Divine mind. The former are mere arbitrary abstractions; the latter the true marks of the Creator on his creatures, as they are imprinted on, and defined in matter, by true and exquisite touches. Truth, therefore, and utility are here perfectly identical.”

“Truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion.”

“Above all, every relation must be considered as suspicious, which depends in any degree upon religion, as the prodigies of Livy: And no less so, everything that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors, who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for falsehood and fable.”

“Since my logic aims to teach and instruct the understanding, not that it may with the slender tendrils of the mind snatch at and lay hold of abstract notions (as the common logic does), but that it may in very truth dissect nature, and discover the virtues and actions of bodies, with their laws as determined in matter; so that this science flows not merely from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things.”

“To God, truly, the Giver and Architect of Forms, and it may be to the angels and higher intelligences, it belongs to have an affirmative knowledge of forms immediately, and from the first contemplation. But this assuredly is more than man can do, to whom it is granted only to proceed at first by negatives, and at last to end in affirmatives, after exclusion has been exhausted.”

“My Lord St. Albans said that Nature did never put her precious jewels into a garret four stories high, and therefore that exceeding tall men had ever very empty heads.”

“Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.”

“Like strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones.”

“Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.”

“Sir Henry Wotton used to say that critics are like brushers of noblemen's clothes.”

“Sir Amice Pawlet, when he saw too much haste made in any matter, was wont to say. "Stay a while, that we may make an end the sooner."”

“Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.”

“Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appears to be best in four things — old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.”

“Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.”

“Pyrrhus, when his friends congratulated to him his victory over the Romans under Fabricius, but with great slaughter of his own side, said to them, "Yes; but if we have such another victory, we are undone".”

“Cosmus, Duke of Florence, was wont to say of perfidious friends, that "We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends."”

“There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.”

“Cato said the best way to keep good acts in memory was to refresh them with new.”

“Come home to men's business and bosoms.”

“What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.”

“No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.”

“Truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not shew the masks and mummeries and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelights.”

“It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.”

“Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.”

“Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.”

“It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man, so weak, but it mates, and masters, the fear of death; and therefore, death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear preoccupieth it.”

“Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.”

“Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.”

“Base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark.”

“Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon.”

“Vindictive persons live the life of witches; who, as they are mischievous, so end they infortunate.”

“Of Unity Of Religion”

“It is yet a higher speech of his than the other, “It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.””

“It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that “The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.””

“Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.”

“Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.”

“Virtue is like precious odors — most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.”

“The joys of parents are secret; and so are their griefs and fears. They cannot utter the one; nor they will not utter the other.”

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public.”

“Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.”

“Wise men make more opportunities than they find.”

“A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others. For men's minds, will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one, will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope, to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by depressing another's fortune.”

“For there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself, as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, That it is impossible to love, and to be wise.”

“For it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded either with the reciproque, or with an inward and secret contempt.”

“Nuptial love maketh mankind, friendly love perfecteth it, but wonton love corrupteth and embaseth it.”

“Men in great place are thrice servants,—servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business.”

“He that hath knowledge spareth his words.”

“It is a strange desire, to seek power and to lose liberty.”

“Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled. Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still he was never a whit abashed, but said, "If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill."”

“Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.”

“Boldness is ever blind; for it seeth not dangers and inconveniences.”

“Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.”

“A good name is like a precious ointment; it filleth all around about, and will not easily away; for the odors of ointments are more durable than those of flowers.”

“This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.”

“In charity there is no excess.”

“What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.”

“If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.”

“Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.”

“The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.”

“It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.”

“Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.”

“Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon.”

“The remedy is worse than the disease.”

“Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.”

“I had rather believe all the fables in the legends and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind. And therefore, God never wrought miracle, to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.”

“Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.”

“Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.”

“You shall have atheists strive to get disciples, as it fareth with other sects. And, which is most of all, you shall have of them, that will suffer for atheism, and not recant; whereas if they did truly think, that there were no such thing as God, why should they trouble themselves?”

“People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.”

“The great atheists, indeed are hypocrites; which are ever handling holy things, but without feeling; so as they must needs be cauterized in the end.”

“Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.”

“It is natural to die as to be born.”

“They that deny a God destroy a man’s nobility, for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.”

“The joys of parents are secret, and so are their grieves and fears.”

“Therefore, as atheism is in all respects hateful, so in this, that it depriveth human nature of the means to exalt itself, above human frailty.”

“Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.”

“It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion, as is unworthy of him. For the one is unbelief, the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity.”

“God's first creature, which was light.”

“Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that traveleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.”

“Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.”

“Princes are like heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration but no rest.”

“Knowledge and human power are synonymous.”

“There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little.”

“The greatest trust, between man and man, is the trust of giving counsel. For in other confidences, men commit the parts of life; their lands, their goods, their children, their credit, some particular affair; but to such as they make their counsellors, they commit the whole: by how much the more, they are obliged to all faith and integrity.”

“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.”

“Fortune is like the market, where many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.”

“The correlative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors.”

“Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.”

“Acorns were good until bread was found.”

“In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow the name of the world; as to say, "The world says," or "There is a speech abroad."”

“The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.”

“People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can't fool the neighbors.”

“There is a cunning which we in England call "the turning of the cat in the pan;" which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him.”

“Anger is certainly a kind of baseness, as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns: children, women, old folks, sick folks.”

“It is a good point of cunning for a man to shape the answer he would have in his own words and propositions, for it makes the other party stick the less.”

“God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.”

“Be true to thyself, as thou be not false to others.”

“Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.”

“It is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs.”

“Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.”

“As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.”

“Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.”

“He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.”

“Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible.”

“There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.”

“Affected dispatch is one of the most dangerous things to business that can be. It is like that, which the physicians call predigestion, or hasty digestion; which is sure to fill the body full of crudities, and secret seeds of diseases. Therefore measure not dispatch, by the times of sitting, but by the advancement of the business.”

“Science is but an image of the truth.”

“Seeming wise men may make shift to get opinion; but let no man choose them for employment; for certainly you were better take for business, a man somewhat absurd, than over-formal.”

“There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.”

“It hath been an opinion that the French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are; but howsoever it be between nations, certainly it is so between man and man.”

“Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.”

“A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.”

“The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies than in any constant belief.”

“But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections, is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.”

“They that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.”

“Cure the disease and kill the patient.”

“The great end of life is not knowledge but action.”

“Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.”

“Riches are for spending.”

“Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.”

“He that commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.”

“A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it.”

“Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.”

“The greatness of an estate, in bulk and territory, doth fall under measure; and the greatness of finances and revenue, doth fall under computation. The population may appear by musters; and the number and greatness of cities and towns by cards and maps. But yet there is not any thing amongst civil affairs more subject to error, than the right valuation and true judgment concerning the power and forces of an estate.”

“Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.”

“There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic. A man's own observation, what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health.”

“Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.”

“I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.”

“Beware of sudden change, in any great point of diet, and, if necessity inforce it, fit the rest to it. For it is a secret both in nature and state, that it is safer to change many things, than one.”

“The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.”

“As for the passions and studies of the mind: avoid envy; anxious fears; anger fretting inwards; subtle and knotty inquisitions; joys and exhilarations in excess; sadness not communicated. Entertain hopes; mirth rather than joy; variety of delights, rather than surfeit of them; wonder and admiration, and therefore novelties; studies that fill the mind with splendid and illustrious objects, as histories, fables, and contemplations of nature.”

“Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse.”

“Suspicions amongst thoughts, are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight. Certainly they are to be repressed, or at least well guarded: for they cloud the mind; they leese friends; and they check with business, whereby business cannot go on currently and constantly. They dispose kings to tyranny, husbands to jealousy, wise men to irresolution and melancholy. They are defects, not in the heart, but in the brain; for they take place in the stoutest natures.”

“Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.”

“Intermingle...jest with earnest.”

“It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.”

“Discretion of speech, is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him, with whom we deal, is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.”

“The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.”

“So ambitious men, if they find the way open for their rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy than dangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they become secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased, when things go backward.”

“Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.”

“Nature is often hidden; sometimes overcome; seldom extinguished.”

“The place of justice is a hallowed place.”

“Men's thoughts, are much according to their inclination; their discourse and speeches, according to their learning and infused opinions; but their deeds, are after as they have been accustomed.”

“People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.”

“Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.”

“If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.”

“He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.”

“Chiefly the mold of a man's fortune is in his own hands.”

“Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.”

“If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.”

“Knowledge and human power are synonymous.”

“Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects than for settled business.”

“Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.”

“Virtue is like a rich stone — best plain set.”

“Wise men make more opportunities than they find.”

“Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.”

“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”

“The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.”

“We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.”

“Deformed persons are commonly even with nature; for as nature hath done ill by them, so do they by nature; being for the most part (as the Scripture saith) void of natural affection; and so they have their revenge of nature.”

“There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self.”

“Houses are built to live in, not to look on; therefore, let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had.”

“No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic, and certainly, to a kingdom or estate, a just and honourable war is the true exercise.”

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.”

“Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.”

“And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air.”

“Rebellions of the belly are the worst.”

“The planting of hemp and flax would be an unknown advantage to the kingdom, many places therein being as apt for it , as any foreing parts.”

“The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs.”

“Costly followers are not to be liked; lest while a man maketh his train longer, he make his wings shorter.”

“The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.”

“To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.”

“Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.”

“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.”

“Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.”

“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”

“Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.”

“When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative.”

“Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.”

“I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.”

“Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.”

“I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind.”

“If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.”

“A wise man will make more opportunities, than he finds.”

“Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability.”

“Certainly fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swoln, and drowns things weighty and solid.”

“The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.”

“Glorious men are the scorn of wise men, the admiration of fools, the idols of parasites, and the slaves of their own vaunts.”

“Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.”

“The winning of honor, is but the revealing of a man's virtue and worth, without disadvantage.”

“Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.”

“Judges ought to remember, that their office is jus dicere, and not jus dare; to interpret law, and not to make law, or give law.”

“Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.”

“A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.”

“Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences; for there is no worse torture than the torture of laws. Specially in case of laws penal, they ought to have care that that which was meant for terror be not tuned into rigour; and that they bring not upon the people that shower whereof the Scripture speaketh, Pluet super eos laqueos: for penal laws pressed are a shower of snares upon the people.”

“It is a true rule that love is ever rewarded, either with the reciproque or with an inward and secret contempt.”

“The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men is the vicissitude of sects and religions.”

“A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.”

“God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.”

“The world's a bubble, and the life of man Less than a span.”

“As the births of living creatures are at first ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.”

“Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns the water, or but writes in dust.”

“He that hath knowledge spareth his words.”

“What then remains but that we still should cry Not to be born, or, being born, to die?”

“For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.”

“Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.”

“The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.”

“The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.”

“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

“Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.”

“Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.”

“Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.”

“Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.”

“I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind.”

“It is impossible to love and to be wise.”

“Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability.”

“The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.”

“Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.”

“By indignities men come to dignities.”

“Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.”

“A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.”

“A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.”

“It is a true rule that love is ever rewarded, either with the reciproque or with an inward and secret contempt.”

“A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.”

“Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.”

“As the births of living creatures are at first ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.”

“He that hath knowledge spareth his words.”

“For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.”

“Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.”

“The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.”

“The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.”

“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

“Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.”

“A man that is young in years may be old in hours if he have lost no time. ”

“Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.”

“Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.”

“Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.”

“Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.”

“The worst men often give the best advice.”

“Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.”

“Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.”

“Truth is a naked and open daylight, that does not show the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. . . A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure”

“Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.”

“Acorns were good until bread was found.”

“The worst men often give the best advice.”

“Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.”

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.”

“But men must know, that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.”

“Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.”

“The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.”

“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”

“Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.”

“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.”

“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”

“The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.”

“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.”

“He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.”

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.”

“There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.”

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.”

“The remedy is worse than the disease.”

“In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.”

“Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.”

“Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.”

“Silence is the virtue of fools.”

“Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.”

“If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.”

“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.”

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

“It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.”

“If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.”

“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.”

“Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”

“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.”

“The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.”

“Knowledge is power.”

“Nay, number (itself) in armies, importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for (as Virgil saith) it never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.”

“Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.”

“It is not the pleasure of curiosity, nor the quiet of resolution, nor the raising of the spirit, nor victory of wit, nor faculty of speech … that are the true ends of knowledge … but it is a restitution and reinvesting, in great part, of man to the sovereignty and power, for whensoever he shall be able to call the creatures by their true names, he shall again command them.”

“Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.”

“Knowledge, that tendeth but to satisfaction, is but as a courtesan, which is for pleasure, and not for fruit or generation.”

“Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.”

“Aristotle… a mere bond-servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious and well nigh useless.”

“God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.”

“Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.”

“I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defense. I beseech your Lordships to be merciful to a broken reed.”

“Opportunity makes a thief.”

“Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.”

“Lucid intervals and happy pauses.”

“Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.”

“The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.”

“Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress.”

“If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.”

“Anger is certainly a kind of baseness, as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns: children, women, old folks, sick folks.”

“Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.”

“I bequeath my soul to God... My body to be buried obscurely. For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next age.”

“A bachelor's life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.”

“It is true that may hold in these things, which is the general root of superstition; namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.”

“God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.”

“Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.”

“The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.”

“He that defers his charity 'till he is dead, is (if a man weighs it rightly) rather liberal of another man's, than of his own.”

“Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread.”

“Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb.”

“Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.”

“Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.”

“When you wander, as you often delight to do, you wander indeed, and give never such satisfaction as the curious time requires. This is not caused by any natural defect, but first for want of election, when you, having a large and fruitful mind, should not so much labour what to speak as to find what to leave unspoken. Rich soils are often to be weeded.”