Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.

Mysteries are due to secrecy.

None of the affections have been noted to fascinate and bewitch but envy.

It is a poore Center of a Mans Actions, Himselfe.

The surest way to prevent seditions…is to take away the matter of them.

It is impossible to love and to be wise.

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

A wise man that had it for a by-word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, `Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner’.

Prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue.

God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning, it far surpasseth all other in nature

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

Knowledge and human power are synonymous

A healthy body is a guest chamber for the soul: a sick body is a prison

God Almighty first planted a garden; and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.

It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgment.

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

Study After Velasquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X,

The speaking in perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but love

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

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

[Knowledge is] a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man’s estate.

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 a flatterer.

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.

It had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together, in few words, than in that speech: `Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast, or a god’.

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.

Nature is commanded by obeying her.

What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin.

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

A man finds himself seven years older the day after his marriage.

Sacred and inspired divinity, the sabaoth and port of all men’s labours and peregrinations.

It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire, and many things to fear

A crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures

Praise from the common people is generally false, and rather follows the vain that the viruous.

For behavior, men learn it, as they take diseases, one of another