Francis Bacon

Ambition is like a choler, which makes an ill digestion, but a good appetite.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

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

Things done well, and with a good grace, are twice done.

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.

The greatest errors are not in the want of power, but in the will.

It is a thing that ever holds, that a man is never so much an atheist as when he is most superstitious.

Truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the world half so stately and daintily as candle-lights.

The inquiry, knowledge, and belief of truth, is the sovereign good of human nature.

Friendship is a medicine for all misfortunes.

Old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, old authors to read.

The greatest wisdom is to know oneself.

To be ignorant of causes is to be frustrated in action.

The froward retention of custom is as turbulent a thing as innovation.

It is a sad fate to be a man of sense, in a country of fools.

The works of God are great and wonderful, but the works of man are often small and contemptible.

For good and evil, there is no place for neutrality.

He that is a master of himself, is a master of the world.

The more you know, the less you need.

The greatest advantage of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.