Francis Bacon

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

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

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

“It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.”

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

“There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.”

“It is a true rule that love is ever rewarded, either with the reciproque or with an inward and secret contempt.”

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

“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 flat...”

“Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.”

“God's first creature, which was light.”

“As the births of living creatures are at first ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.”

“Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.”

“People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.”

“Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.”

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

“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.”

“Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.”

“Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.”

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