Francis Bacon

People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.

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

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

Many a man’s strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.

You who write, choose a subject suited to your abilities and think long and hard on what your powers are equal to and what they are unable to perform.

The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.

You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she’ll be constantly running back.

Death then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live if we cannot bear to die.

The city is recruited from the country.

I have thought of a pulley to raise me gradually; but that would give me pain, as it would counteract my natural inclination. I would have something that can dissipate the inertia and give elasticity to the muscles. We can heat the body, we can cool it; we can give it tension or relaxation; and surely it is possible to bring it into a state in which rising from bed will not be a pain.

Nothing does Reason more Right, than the Coolness of those that offer it: for Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the arguments of its opposers.

Reality is a sliding door.

Failure is an important part of your growth and developing resilience. Don’t be afraid to fail.

A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law.

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

I am living in a nightmare, from which from time to time I wake in sleep.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.

With all the doubt, with every worry, with all the negativity that I mistook for honesty, it kept me blinded. Lying for so long, I fooled myself in believing it to be my reality. And living in that world, it was my reality. Like when the lights come on, or when the curtains are drawn back, the shock of the clarity, meant I had to adjust to the new world I was witnessing. An honest; good with the bad, world, that I can thrive and grow in.

There is a crack in everything God has made.