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

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

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

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.

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

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.

If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.

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.

A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

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.

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

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.

Science is but an image of the truth.

Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.

God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.

God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.

Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.

Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.

Knowledge is power.

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

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.

Friends are thieves of time.

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.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

It is impossible to love and to be wise.

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

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

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

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 virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.

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

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

Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.

By indignities men come to dignities.

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

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

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.

Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness, as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns: children, women, old folks, sick folks.

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

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

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