FRANCIS BACON

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

Science is but an image of the truth.

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

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

Opportunity makes a thief.

I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind.

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

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon.

He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.

Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.

God's first creature, which was light.

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

There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self.

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

Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.

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

Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.

A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.

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

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

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.