Francis Bacon

If money be not they servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.

Suspicion amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they never fly by twilight.

Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.

As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

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

The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and angle of contingency, and qualifies all his qualifications, but who throws himself on your part so heartily, that he can get you out of a scrape.

And deep in my heart. The answer, it was in me. And I made up my mind. To define my own destiny.

For too long I have silenced my heart, that now, when I give it the opportunity to speak, it no longer remembers its voice. Locked away, it forgot what it’s like to be free; to roam. Imprisoned within loneliness, I fear Stockholm syndrome has developed.

Standing on the doorstep of desire, I hold this bouquet like a gun and these vows like a petition for the death penalty.

I would live to study, and not study to live.

We run to win, not just to be in the race.

Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats.

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

Most people think that aging is irreversible and we know that there are mechanisms even in the human machinery that allow for the reversal of aging, through correction of diet, through anti-oxidants, through removal of toxins from the body, through exercise, through yoga and breathing techniques, and through meditation.

You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.

Tragedy was foresworn, in ritual denial of the ripe knowledge that we are drawing away from one another, that we share only one thing, share the fear of belonging to another, or to others, or to God; love or money, tender equated in advertising and the world, where only money is currency, and under dead trees and brittle ornaments prehensile hands exchange forgeries of what the heart dare not surrender.

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not an example.

If you develop rules, never have more than ten.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

I’m not a teacher: only a fellow-traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead – ahead of myself as well as you.