Francis Bacon

Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.

Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.

Images also help me find and realise ideas. I look at hundreds of very different, contrasting images and I pinch details from them, rather like people who eat from other people

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

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

Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.

When you know better, you do better.

Life is measured by the rapidity of change, the succession of influences that modify the being.

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.

A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.

There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little, and therefore men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not keep their suspicions in smother.

Knowledge exists to be imparted.

Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favor. She imagines herself not only certain of accomplishing every adventure, but of obtaining those rewards which the accomplishment may deserve. She is not easily persuaded to believe that the force of merit can be resisted by obstinacy and avarice, or its luster darkened by envy and malignity.

The miracles of genius always rest on profound convictions which refuse to be analyzed.

Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, which is the parent of instruction and the schoolmaster of life.

We live by our imagination, our admirations, and our sentiments.

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

No matter how carefully you plan your goals they will never be more than pipe dreams unless you pursue them with gusto.