Francis Bacon

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.

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

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

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor.

He will be loved when dead, who was envied when he was living.

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.

Some men do as much begrudge others a good name, as they want one themselves: and perhaps that is the reason of it.

Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven.

Every great achievement is the victory of a flaming heart.

Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect.

It’s so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right.

What do we call love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, forgiveness? Different results of the master impulse, the necessity of securing one’s self-approval.

It were endless to dispute upon everything that is disputable.

Awareness is the greatest agent for change.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they’re gone.

One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.