Francis Bacon

Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

Men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts.

Knowledge is power.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

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.

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.

When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented.

The best efforts of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.

Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.

Life is too precious to be spent in this weaving and unweaving of false impressions, and it is better to live quietly under some degree of misrepresentation than to attempt to remove it by the uncertain process of letter-writing.

Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice.

I hold every man a debtor to his profession.

All good things are cheap: all bad are very dear.

Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.

Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.

I am a democrat only on principle, not by instinct – nobody is that. Doubtless some people say they are, but this world is grievously given to lying.

A sudden bold and unexpected question does many times surprise a man and lay him open.

Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due.

He took off his hat and shook it (having hurried home as though his own coronation were waiting), and moved now with the slow deliberation of lonely people who have time for every meager requirement of their lives.

Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the world.