Francis Bacon

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

It is of no consequence of what parents a man is born, as long as he be a man of merit.

How could a man be satisfied with a decision between such alternatives and under such circumstances? No more than he can be satisfied with his hat, which he’s chosen from among such shapes as the resources of the age offer him, wearing it at best with a resignation which is chiefly supported by comparison.

Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

Anger is a momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.

Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in act the invisible thought of his mind.

God is better served in resisting a Temptation to Evil, than in many formal Prayers.

He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise.

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

Europe extends to the Alleghenies; America lies beyond.

Usually the modest person passes for someone reserved, the silent for a sullen person

We are a puny and fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases.

Life is largely a matter of expectation.