Francis Bacon

It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tost upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage ground of truth… and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below.

If money be not they servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

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

In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.

Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.

The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they see face to face; and their converse is free as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.

Life is short, but there is always time for courtesy.

This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.

Life is a progress, and not a station.

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.

No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.

By his father he is English, by his mother he is Americanto my mind the blend which makes the perfect man.