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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.

A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it.

This delivering of knowledge in distinct and disjointed aphorisms doth leave the wit of man more free to turn and toss, and to make use of that which is so delivered to more several purposes...

Like the strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones.

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

In nature things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place

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.

For the world is not to be narrowed till it will go into the understanding (which has been done hitherto), but the understanding is to be expanded and opened till it can take in the...

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can’t fool the neighbors.

There is a cunning which we in England call “”the turning of the cat in the pan;”” which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said...

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

As in nature, things move violently to their place and calmly in their place, so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority settled and calm.

Be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others

The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course, it gathers its...