Francis Bacon

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity does best discover vice, but adversity does best discover virtue.

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can’t fool the neighbors.

Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.

It is natural to die as to be born.

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

The disciplined are free.

The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure.

Although the masters make the rules for the wise men and the fools got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.

He is great who confers the most benefits.

Injustice in the end produces independence.

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

Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.

Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and the appetite is keen.

Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.

We are inclined to believe those whom we don not know because they have never deceived us.

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years at least.

All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.