Francis Bacon

They that deny a God destroy man’s nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and, if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.

Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marryA young man not yet, an elder man not at all.

No man’s fortune can be an end worthy of his being.

Rebellions of the belly are the worst.

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.

The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.

If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.

That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem.

From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

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

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.

But men must know, that in this theatre of man’s life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.

A private Life is to be preferred; the Honor and Gain of publick Posts, bearing no proportion with the Comfort of it

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.

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

Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods loved him because men hated him.