Francis Bacon

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.

Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

If you protect a man from folly, you will soon have a nation of fools.

You’ll never have a quiet world until you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

It is interesting to observe with what singular unanimity the farthest sundered nations and generations consent to give completeness and roundness to an ancient fable, of which they indistinctly appreciate the beauty or the truth. By a faint and dream-like effort, though it be only by the vote of a scientific body, the dullest posterity slowly add some trait to the mythus. As when astronomers call the lately discovered planet Neptune; or the asteroid Astr.

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap, than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.

No matter how hard the past is, we can always begin again.

There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire; it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism.

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say; even though we may repeat the words ever so often.

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

I am neither of the East nor of the West, no boundaries exist within my breast.

He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.

Ah! Sir, a boy’s being flogged is not so severe as a man’s having the hiss of the world against him.

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.