For those who intend to discover and to understand, not to indulge in conjectures and soothsaying, and rather than contrive imitation and fabulous worlds plan to look deep into the nature of the real world and to dissect it — for them everything must be sought in things themselves.

Suspicions amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight.

People of great position are servants times three, servants of their country, servants of fame, and servants of business.

Words, when written, crystallize history; their very structure gives permanence to the unchangeable past

Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.

The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.

Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb.

Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.

In charity there is no excess.

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

If any human being earnestly desires to push on to new discoveries instead of just retaining and using the old; to win victories over Nature as a worker rather than over hostile critics as a disputant; to attain, in fact, clear and demonstrative know

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

I have taken all knowledge to be my province

In counsel it is good to see dangers; but in execution not to see them unless they be very great

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.

There is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom.

Look to make your course regular, that men may know beforehand what they may expect.

Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.

Poesy was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind by submitting the shews of things to the desires of the mind.

Men’s thoughts are much according to their inclination, 1 their discourse and speeches according to their learning and infused opinions.

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.

Opportunity makes a thief.

Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible.

Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.

My essays . . . come home, to men’s business, and bosoms.

Study After Velasquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X,

It is nothing won to admit men with an open door, yet to receive them with a shut and reserved countenance.

Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.

Ask a counsel of both times-of the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest

Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home

The worst men often give the best advice.

A bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

All colors will agree in the dark.

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

A prudent question is one half of wisdom.

Houses are built to live in, not to look on; therefore, let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man’s own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.

Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects than for settled business.

But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth, nor again that when it is found it imposeth upon men’s thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself.

Truth is a naked and open daylight, that does not show the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. . . A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure

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

What then remains but that we still should cry for being born, and, being born, to die?

The correlative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors.

Argumentation cannot suffice for the discovery of new work, since the subtlety of Nature is greater many times than the subtlety of argument.

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

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

Friendship redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half

Nay, the same Solomon the king, although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith...

Money is a great servant but a bad master.