Francis Bacon

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.

But men must know, that in this theatre of man’s life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.

Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.

Nothing does more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel.

There is nothing more distressing or tiresome than a writer standing in front of an audience and reading his work.

Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.

I am not much an advocate for traveling, and I observe that men run away to other countries because they are not good in their own, and run back to their own because they pass for nothing in the new places. For the most part, only the light characters travel. Who are you that have no task to keep you at home?

Religion is as effectually destroyed by bigotry as by indifference.

It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘always do what you are afraid to do.’

One definition of man is an intelligence served by organs.

Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.

Oh man! There is no planet sun or star could hold you, if you but knew what you are.

To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it.

Let us not look east and west for materials of conversation, but rest in presence and unity. A just feeling will fast enough supply fuel for discourse, if speaking be more grateful than silence. When people come to see us, we foolishly prattle, lest we be inhospitable. But things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. A lady of my acquaintance said, I don’t care so much for what they say as I do for what makes them say it.