Francis Bacon

The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.

Anger makes dull men witty – but it keeps them poor.

A healthy body is a guest chamber for the soul: a sick body is a prison.

Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

None of the affections have been noted to fascinate and bewitch but envy.

The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.

Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.

A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.

A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service.

This gives force to the strong — that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action.

A home without a cat-and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat-may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?

The listlessness of it all, the profit off depression, the extinction of an entire species, the chlorinated connections- poisoned just to appear clean.

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

The President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace, and the best of his manly attributes. To preserve for a short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is content to eat dust before the real masters who stand erect behind the throne.

Do Good with what thou hast, or it will do thee no good.

Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.

Beauty is the mark God sets on virtue. Every natural action is graceful; every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine.

Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.

Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain – at least in a poor country like Russia – and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.