Francis Bacon

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

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

Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

Of great wealth there is no real use, except in its distribution, the rest is just conceit.

By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or undeserved.

Republics abound in young civilians who believe that the laws make the city, that grave modifications of the policy and modes of living and employments of the population, that commerce, education and religion may be voted in or out; and that any measure, though it were absurd, may be imposed on a people if only you can get sufficient voices to make it a law. But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow and not lead the character and progress of the citizen; that the form of government which prevails is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it. The law is only a memorandum.

Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other.

To himself everyone is an immortal. He may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.

Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

We judge of man’s wisdom by his hope.

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.

When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.

Have good trust in yourself … not in the One that you think you should be, but in the One that you are.

The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.

Sincerity is the luxury allowed, like diadems and authority, only to the highest rank. Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth into a liar – that I call an achievement.