Francis Bacon

To choose time is to save time.

There be three things which make a nation great and prosperous: a fertile soil, busy workshops, easy conveyance for men and goods from place to place.

Opportunity makes a thief.

Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible.

People of great position are servants times three, servants of their country, servants of fame, and servants of business.

The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.

I believe in things that are developed through hard work. I always like people who have developed long and hard, especially through introspection and a lot of dedication. I think what they arrive at is usually a much deeper and more beautiful thing than the person who seems to have that ability and fluidity from the beginning. I say this because it’s a good message to give to young talents who feel as I used to.

Your own safety is at stake when your neighbor’s wall is ablaze.

Strength doesn’t come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t.

No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back.

All schools, all colleges, have two great functions: to confer, and to conceal, valuable knowledge. The theological knowledge which they conceal cannot justly be regarded as less valuable than that which they reveal. That is, when a man is buying a basket of strawberries it can profit him to know that the bottom half of it is rotten.

My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.

I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion’s roar.

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.

Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.

Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got.

Important encounters are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other.

He that gives good advice builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example builds with both.

To do something, say something, see something, before anybody else – these are things that confer a pleasure compared with which other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial.

The dice of God are always loaded.

The Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa….Leonardo had eye trouble….Art couldn’t explain it….But now we’re safe, since science can explain it. Maybe Milton wrote Paradise Lost because he was blind? And Beethoven wrote the Ninth Symphony because he was deaf…