''Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.''
''We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.''
''Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.''
''He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?''
''Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.''
''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.''
''If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from others lands, but a continent that joins to them.''
''What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.''
''I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.''
''The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears.''
''It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.''
''Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.''
''There was a young man in Rome that was very like Augustus Caesar; Augustus took knowledge of it and sent for the man, and asked him "Was your mother never at Rome?" He answered "No Sir; but my father was."''
''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 the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.''
''Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.''
''For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.''
''Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.''
''Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.''
''For man is but the servant and interpreter of nature: what he does and what he knows is only what he has observed of nature's order in fact or in thought; beyond this he knows nothing and can do nothing.''
''Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.''
''If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us.''
''Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.''
''Certainly fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swoln, and drowns things weighty and solid.''
''They are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they see nothing but sea.''
''Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.''
''He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.''
''There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little.''
''If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.''
''Knowledge is power.''
''Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.''
''A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.''
''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 is both politic and moral.''
''Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.''
''Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.''
''For my name and memory I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next ages.''
''It is true, that a little Philosophy inclineth Mans Minde to Atheisme; But depth in Philosophy, bringeth Mens Mindes about to Religion.''
''There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self.''
''Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.''
''As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.''
''Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.''
''For also knowledge itself is power.''
''Cure the disease and kill the patient.''
''For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.''
''It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.''
''It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.''
''Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.''
''It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man's judgement.''