Francis Bacon

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted… but to weigh and consider.

Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body, and it addeth no small reverence to men’s manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.

The serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself.

Atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man.

To choose time is to save time.

Opportunity makes a thief.

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can’t fool the neighbors.

Croesus said to Cambyses; That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons.

Blame is safer than praise.

Travel is a fools paradise.

Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal.

It is, I fear, but a vain show of fulfilling the heathen precept, Know thyself, and too often leads to a self-estimate which will subsist in the absence of that fruit by which alone the quality of the tree is made evident.

The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, a pledge of sanity, and a protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities in which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow-men can do little for him.

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.

To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals – this alone is worth the struggle.

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.

You can tell a lot about a person by listening to the way they talk about someone they once loved.

A bargain is something you can’t use at a price you can’t resist.

These are not dark days: these are great days – the greatest days our country has ever lived.

Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.