Francis Bacon

Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.

Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.

They that deny a God destroy man’s nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and, if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.

There be three things which make a nation great and prosperous: a fertile soil, busy workshops, easy conveyance for men and goods from place to place.

Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.

It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourselves.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

You cannot be a hero without being a coward.

Many might go to Heaven with half the labor they go to hell.

The memory of a day like today reminds me to hold the ones I love that much tighter, that much longer… Take that much more time to be present and to feel the blessing of another day…

It is tact that is golden, not silence.

If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.

She has taken a patronizing fancy to her father, the Admiral, who accepts her condescension gratefully as age brings more and more home to him the futility of his social position.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

How some of the writers I come across get through their books without dying of boredom is beyond me.

The person that had took a bull by the tail once had learnt sixty or seventy times as much as a person that hadn’t, and said a person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn’t ever going to grow dim or doubtful. Chances are, he isn’t likely to carry the cat that way again, either. But if he wants to, I say let him!

The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men.

The only prudence in life is concentration.