Francis Bacon

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

You can tell a lot about a person by listening to the way they talk about someone they once loved.

Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

What is the imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy; only the precursor of the reason.

The jealous are troublesome to others, but torment to themselves.

Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers but dress in their small wardrobe of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store according to their appetite.

Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself.

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.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted… but to weigh and consider.

All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.

The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

Life is not an exact science, it is an art.

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence – neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish – it is an imponderably valuable gift.

I would rather have my ignorance than another man’s knowledge, because I have so much of it.