Francis Bacon

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

The mould of a man’s fortune is in his own hands.

Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.

A healthy body is a guest chamber for the soul: a sick body is a prison.

Cure the disease and kill the patient.

Of great wealth there is no real use, except in its distribution, the rest is just conceit.

None of us should be defined by the worst thing we’ve ever done.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it – and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again – and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means – one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge in a few delinquencies.

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later.

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.

You have set up in New York Harbor a monstrous idol which you call Liberty. The only thing that remains to complete that monument is to put on its pedestal the inscription written by Dante on the gate of hell: All hope abandon ye who enter here.

For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.

If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging?

Nothing is so exhilarating in life as to be shot at with no result.

Great people are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.

Love is only one of many passions.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.