Francis Bacon

Believing that I was born for the service of mankind, and regarding the care of the commonwealth as a kind of common property which, like the air and the water, belongs to everybody, I set myself to consider in what way mankind might be best served, and what service I was myself best fitted by nature to perform.

It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.

Croesus said to Cambyses; That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons.

That things are changed, and that nothing really perishes, and that the sum of matter remains exactly the same, is sufficiently certain.

Of great wealth there is no real use, except in its distribution, the rest is just conceit.

Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, that will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered.

I’m out there to clean the plate. Once they’ve read what I’ve written on a subject, I want them to think, ‘That’s it!’ I think the highest aspiration people in our trade can have is that once they’ve written a story, nobody will ever try it again.

Life is not a spectator sport. If you’re going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you’re wasting your life.

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

Who then is free? The wise man who can command himself.

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Every man’s work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

Above anything else, I hate to lose.

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

An honest man is always a child.

The more you know the less you understand.