Francis Bacon

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

Knowledge is power.

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

This is the foundation of all. We are not to imagine or suppose, but to discover, what nature does or may be made to do.

Better see rightly on a pound a week than squint on a million.

Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.

He may justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind.

He who is upright in his way of life and free from sin.

Upon retiring, sleep as if you had entered your last sleep. Upon awakening, leave your bed behind you instantly as if you had cast away a pair of old shoes.

With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.

He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.

The human soul, by once suffering as much as it is capable of, purchases a strange and terrible immunity to all the rest of life’s sorrows.

How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!

At the end of the day, life is about being happy being who you are.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last.

Pleasure that is obtained by unreasonable and unsuitable cost, must always end in pain.

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ is a snivelling modern invention, with no warrant in the gospels.

When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence by dwelling on their vices.