To be free minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one of the best precepts of long lasting.

God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires

There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise

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...

Custom is the principal magistrate of man’s life.

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.

To choose time is to save time.

A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.

Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.

It was prettily devised of Aesop, ”The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said, what dust do I raise! ”

Little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is...

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand–and melting like a snowflake…

The creative process is a cocktail of instinct, skill, culture and a highly creative feverishness. It is not like a drug; it is a particular state when everything happens very quickly, a mixture of consciousness...

Out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books, and the like, we do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time

Men in great place are thrice servants, – servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business.

Nuptial love makes mankind; friendly love perfects it; but wanton love corrupts and debases it.

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

A man’s nature runs either to herbs, or to weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other.

He that hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.

Reading maketh a full man.

No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.

Our humanity were a poor thing were it not for the divinity which stirs within us

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.

Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body, and it addeth no small reverence to men’s manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy...

The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.

Suspicions that the mind, of itself, gathers, are but buzzes; but suspicions that are artificially nourished and put into men’s heads by the tales and whisperings of others, have stings.

The best preservative to keep the mind on health is the faithful admonition of a friend.

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

Study After Velasquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X,

Man, being the servant and interpreter of nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he...

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. In everything man has accomplished, we have only manipulated nature into doing what it is.

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

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

Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.

Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.