Francis Bacon

If a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.

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

God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.

A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

Suspicion amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they never fly by twilight.

Put an Irishman on the spit and you can always get another Irishman to turn him.

Oh man! There is no planet sun or star could hold you, if you but knew what you are.

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.

Short words are the best and old words when short are best of all.

He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.

To find yourself, think for yourself.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

It is your business when the wall next door catches fire.

He who would begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin.

A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for naught.

The eye is easily frightened.

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.