Francis Bacon

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

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.

Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.

In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.

If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us.

The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three. First to lay asleep opposition and to surprise. For where a man’s intentions are published, it is an alarum to call up all that are against them. The second is to reserve a man’s self a fair retreat: for if a man engage himself, by a manifest declaration, he must go through, or take a fall. The third is, the better to discover the mind of another. For to him that opens himself, men will hardly show themselves adverse; but will fair let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to freedom of thought.

It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

A man’s action is only a picture book of his creed.

No one ever became great by imitation.

You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

What contemptible scoundrel has stolen the cork to my lunch?

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

I do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow because even today I still arrive.

To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.

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.

One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymen’s miseries is to go and look at their pleasures.

This body of mine is my teacher. This heart of mine, my guide. My dear head struggles to make sense of it all whilst my hands gently remind me to trust and let go.

There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven’t started wondering about yet.

The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him.