Come home to men's business and bosoms.
No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that "The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired."
It is yet a higher speech of his than the other, "It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god."
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.
Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.
Virtue is like precious odours,--most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.
Men in great place are thrice servants,--servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business.
Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled. Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still he was never a whit abashed, but said, "If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill."
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.
The remedy is worse than the disease.
I had rather believe all the fables in the legends and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind.
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.
Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration but no rest.
In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow the name of the world; as to say, "The world says," or "There is a speech abroad."
There is a cunning which we in England call "the turning of the cat in the pan;" which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him.
It is a good point of cunning for a man to shape the answer he would have in his own words and propositions, for it makes the other party stick the less.
It hath been an opinion that the French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are; but howsoever it be between nations, certainly it is so between man and man.
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.
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.