Francis Bacon

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

The serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

It is not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong; not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich; not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned; and not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity.

Look to make your course regular, that men may know beforehand what they may expect.

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

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.

The course of everything goes to teach us faith.

Here’s the thing: the world is not going to issue you an engraved invitation to this life.

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

I do not like work even when someone else does it.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.

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

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.

A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.

Bondage is… subjection to external influences and internal negative thoughts and attitudes.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.