Francis Bacon

Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est (Knowledge Itself Is Power)

It is not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong; not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich; not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned; and not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity.

Opportunity makes a thief.

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

The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.

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.

Hitch your wagon to a star. Let us not fag in paltry works which serve our pot and bag alone.

In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.

A man’s true delight is to do the things he was made for.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know, I’ve done it a thousand times.

Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.

The good rain, like a bad preacher, does not know when to leave off.

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

Friends… they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams.

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

Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God’s handwriting – a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.

I want someone with the proven strength to persevere, someone who knows this job and takes it seriously, someone who understands that the issues a president faces are not black and white and cannot be boiled down to 140 characters.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

Life is measured by the rapidity of change, the succession of influences that modify the being.