Francis Bacon

Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

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

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

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

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

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

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

I would by all means have men beware, lest Æsop's pretty fable of the fly that sate [sic] on the pole of a chariot at the Olympic races and said, 'What a dust do I raise,' be verified in them. For so it is that some small observation, and that disturbed sometimes by the instrument, sometimes by the eye, sometimes by the calculation, and which may be owing to some real change in the heaven, raises new heavens and new spheres and circles.

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.

Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon.

The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies than in any constant belief.

By indignities men come to dignities.

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

To say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men.

Great boldness is seldom without some absurdity.

Men are rather beholden ... generally to chance or anything else, than to logic, for the invention of arts and sciences.

Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said) more professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced: the labour having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progression. For I find much iteration, but small addition. It considereth causes of diseases, with the occasions or impulsions; the diseases themselves, with the accidents; and the cures, with the preservation.

Hope is the most beneficial of all the affections, and doth much to the prolongation of life.

If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again.