Francis Bacon

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.

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.

Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.

By indignities men come to dignities.

Writers are the engineers of human souls.

Try not. Do or do not… there is no try.

Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.

Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real.

If there be three distinct and separate Persons, then three distinct and separate Substances. . . . And since the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God . . . then unless the Father, Son and Spirit are three distinct Nothings, they must be three distinct Substances, and consequently three distinct Gods.

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.

He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?.

People sleep, and when they die they wake.

Dharma is what the Buddha taught. It is the way of understanding and love-how to understand, how to love, how to make understanding and love into real things.

If a man owns land, the land owns him.

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.

A bargain is something you can’t use at a price you can’t resist.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.