Francis Bacon

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

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

It is impossible to love and to be wise.

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.

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

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

Nothing is so exhilarating in life as to be shot at with no result.

Virtue has never been as respectable as money.

Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny: they have only shifted it to another shoulder.

As men’s prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.

If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning Good morning at total strangers.

When you introduce a moral lesson, let it be brief.

A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.

Some of your grief you have cured, and lived to survive; but what torments of pain have you endured that haven’t as yet arrived.

Write without pay until somebody offers to pay you. If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for.

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.

Poetry implies the whole truth, philosophy expresses only a particle of it.

You. too, can determine what you want. You can decide on your major objectives, targets, aims, and destination.

For what is love itself, for the one we love best? An enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.

If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.

He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust