It is impossible to love and to be wise.

Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem...

A prudent question is one half of wisdom.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.

But men must know, that in this theatre of man’s life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers-on.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.

God never wrought miracles to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of him.

New nobility is but the act of power, but ancient nobility is the act of time.

If money be not they servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.

Prosperity doth best discover vice, but Adversity doth best discover virtue

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

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.”[Proposition touching Amendment of Laws]

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.

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

Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

All rising to great places is by a winding stair.

In superstition wise men follow fools

The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding.

We cannot too often think there is a never sleeping eye, which reads the heart, and registers our thoughts

Some books are to be tasted; others swallowed; and some to be chewed and digested.

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

It is scarcely possible at once to admire and excel an author, as water rises no higher than the reservoir it falls from

God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation.

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

What is it then to have or have no wife, / But single thraldom, or a double strife?

Houses are built to live in and not to look on.

It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it that doth the hurt

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...

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

The surest way to prevent seditions (if the times do bear it) is to take away the matter of them.

Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

Measure not dispatch by the time of sitting, but by the advancement of business

Nature is commanded by obeying her.

Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

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

The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.

Acorns were good until bread was found.

It is impossible to love and be wise

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...

The remedy is worse than the disease.

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