Francis Bacon

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

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

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative.

There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little, and therefore men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not keep their suspicions in smother.

Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.

Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other; given the upper, to find the under side.

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.

That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.

To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you can not eat.

Part of her mystery is how she is calm in the storm and anxious in the quiet.

Friendships begin with liking or gratitude roots that can be pulled up.

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes, than a public library.

No matter how hard the past is, we can always begin again.

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

Events tend to recur in cycles.