I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.

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

A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants...

In the state of nature profit is the measure of right.

Argument is conclusive, but it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment.

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

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.

The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.

Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.

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

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

Fashion for the most part is nothing but the ostentation of riches.

War consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known.

The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.

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

It is natural to die as to be born.

To love our neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality.

The right of nature… is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life.

Every failure is a step to success.

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

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned...

The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

Rebellions of the belly are the worst.

By indignities men come to dignities.

Where there is no property there is no injustice.

Such truth, as opposeth no man’s profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

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

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing.

Prudence is but experience, which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things they equally apply themselves unto.

Hence no force, however great, can stretch a cord, however fine, into a horizontal line which is accurately straight: there will always be a bending downwards.

Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

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

There cannot be greater rudeness than to interrupt another in the current of his discourse.

A man’s conscience and his judgment is the same thing; and as the judgment, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.

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

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

For also knowledge itself is power.

Any one reflecting upon the thought he has of the delight, which any present or absent thing is apt to produce in him, has the idea we call love.

A wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men) that wise men only should be able to commend him.

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.

Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible.