Francis Bacon

Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

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

In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.

For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.

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.

Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.

Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread.

A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.

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

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.

Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.

If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.