Francis Bacon

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

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

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

In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.

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

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

Train hard, turn up, run your best and the rest will take care of itself.

By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or undeserved.

Life is a series of surprises and would not be worth taking or keeping if it were not.

Humility and knowledge in poor clothes excel pride and ignorance in costly attire.

They that have grown old in a single state are generally found to be morose, fretful and captious; tenacious of their own practices and maxims; soon offended by contradiction or negligence; and impatient of any association but with those that will watch their nod, and submit themselves to unlimited authority.

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts – a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments.

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

Above all, we must avoid the pitfalls of tribalism. If we are divided among ourselves on tribal lines, we open our doors to foreign intervention and its potentially harmful consequences.

If he really thinks there is no distinction between vice and virtue, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession.

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.