Francis Bacon

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark.

In order to stir up others, I have myself been obliged to become a wanderer.

The opinion of plenty is among the principal causes of want.

The truth of a thing is in its being; the good of a thing is in its using.

It is a thing that ever accompanies great parts, that those that have them are not soon satisfied.

Age doth not rectify, but rather confirm and harden, good or bad.

The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to search it out.

For a man's private fortune it is good to have an eye to his own affairs; for a commonwealth, to have an eye to its neighbours.

The greatest objection to a monarch cannot be made without a paradox; for it is that he is too great to be good.

Truth is a good nurse, but a bad physician.

The less you say, the more you are listened to.

It is a miserable thing to have a man's destiny depend upon the breath of another man.

The most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty, especially in minds of some nobility.

The human mind is a mirror, but an uneven one, and it distorts the rays of things by its own nature.

For a man to be in love with himself is to be a rival to himself.

The mind of man is far from a clear and even mirror, but is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstitions and impostures.

I have taken all knowledge to be my province.

For the thereof, I cannot but say, that I found myself in a condition, which in truth I am not able to express, but by a kind of similitude. I was a man of a broken fortune, and of a broken health, and of a broken mind.

The corruption of the best things is the worst.

Judges ought to be more learned than witty, more reverend than plausible, and more advised than confident.