Francis Bacon

When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative.

Friends are thieves of time.

It is impossible to love and to be wise.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion.

Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it?

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

There can be no friendship where there is no freedom. Friendship loves a free air, and will not be fenced up in straight and narrow enclosures.

Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.

For we put the power in the people.

Appearances matter – and remember to smile.

Great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree. We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

The roses under my window make no reference to former roses or better ones; they are what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.

We are not won by arguments that we can analyze, but by tone and temper; by the manner, which is the man himself.

I don’t think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking theres some kind of change.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

To him whom contemplates a trait of natural beauty, no harm nor despair can come. The doctrines of despair, spiritual or political servitude, were never taught by those who shared the serenity of Nature. For each phase of Nature, though not invisible, is yet not too distinct or obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not too demanding of our attention.

What you do makes a difference. And you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.