Francis Bacon

Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.

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.

Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.

The only advantage of not being too good a housekeeper is that your guests are so pleased to feel how very much better they are.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.

One thing you learn: if you want to reveal yourself, you also have to know where to stop.

Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.

What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm.

It isn’t safe to sit in judgment upon another person’s illusion when you are not on the inside. While you are thinking it is a dream, he may be knowing it is a planet.

Take away the danger and remove the restraint, and wayward nature runs free.

A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza; read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing.

The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.

There are charms made only for distance admiration.

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.

He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.

The intuitive recognition of the instant, thus reality… is the highest act of wisdom.