Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.
— Francis Bacon
This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.
God's first creature, which was light.
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.
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.
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.
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.
Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.
Rebellions of the belly are the worst.
Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.
A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
As the births of living creatures are at first ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.
A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
The worst men often give the best advice.
God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.
Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.
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.
I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
The place of justice is a hallowed place.
Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.
Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.
Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.
Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it.
Acorns were good until bread was found.
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted... but to weigh and consider.
The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
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.
I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.
Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible.
For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.
It is natural to die as to be born.
People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.
The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
They that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.
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.
The remedy is worse than the disease.
The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.
Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.
He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.
Silence is the virtue of fools.
The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
