Crafty men condemn studies; Simple men admire them; And wise men use them: For they teach not their own use: but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation.

The mould of a man’s fortune is in his own hands.

Money is a good servant, a dangerous master.

All colors will agree in the dark.

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

It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man’s self.

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority

It hath been an opinion that the French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are; but howsoever it be between nations, certainly it is so between man and man

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their grieves and fears.

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

To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none.

The world ‘s a bubble, and the life of man less than a span.

It is a good point of cunning for a man to shape the answer he would have in his own words and propositions, for it makes the other party stick the less.

The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three. First to lay asleep opposition and to surprise. For where a man’s intentions are published, it is an alarum to call up all that are against...

Habit, if wisely and skillfully formed, becomes truly a second nature; but unskillfully and unmethodically depicted, it will be as it were an ape of nature, which imitates nothing to the life, but only clumsily...

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and...

A man is but what he knoweth.

If a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.

In charity there is no excess.

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

Certainly it is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs.

Many a man’s strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he groweth out of use

There be that can pack the cards, and yet cannot play well.

It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.

No man’s fortune can be an end worthy of his being.

Man seeketh in society comfort, use and protection

It is natural to die as to be born.

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

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

Great art is always a way of concentrating, reinventing what is called fact, what we know of our existence- a reconcentration… tearing away the veils, the attitudes people acquire of their time and earlier time....

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of God ‘ s favor. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity...

There is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom.

I hold every man a debtor to his profession; from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavour themselves by way of amends...

He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marry? ‘A young man not yet, an elder man not at all

Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him . . . when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, ‘If the hill will not come...

Revenge is a kind of wild justice.

Books will speak plain when counselors blanch

There is a superstition in avoiding superstition.

A man who contemplates revenge keeps his wounds green.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself.

We see then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands. For have not some books continued twenty-five hundred years or more, without...

It cannot be denied that outward accidents conduce much to fortune, favor, opportunity, death of others, occasion fitting virtue; but chiefly, the mold of a man’s fortune is in his own hands

Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.

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

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

Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.

Opportunity makes a thief.