Francis Bacon

Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to know which he does not.

For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man’s own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.

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

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

The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.

Each of us has the right and the responsibility to asses the road which lie ahead and those over which we have traveled, and if the feature road looms ominous or unpromising, and the road back uninviting-inviting, then we need to gather our resolve and carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that one as well.

Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.

As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.

Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.

Men being born with a title to perfect freedom and uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature . . . no one can be put out of his estate and subjected to the political view of another, without his consent.

Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.

The future is purchased by the present.

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

Valor consists in the power of self recovery.

A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the notion of his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber; for nothing on earth is solitary but every thing hath affinities infinite.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

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