If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.
A man is but what he knows.
To know truly is to know by causes.
I have taken all knowledge to be my province.
There is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom.
Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.
Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in science by reverence for antiquity, by the authority of men counted great in philosophy, and then by general consent.
The human understanding, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater degree of order and regularity in things than it really finds.
The voice of the people has about it something divine: for how otherwise can so many heads agree together as one? [Lat., Vox populi habet aliquid divinum: nam quomo do aliter tot capita in unum conspirare possint?]
But I account the use that a man should seek of the publishing of his own writings before his death, to be but an untimely anticipation of that which is proper to follow a man, and not to go along with him. - Francis Bacon,
A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
There was never law, or set, or opinion did so much magnify goodness, as the Christian religion doth.
The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men, is the vicissitude of sects and religions.
Religion brought forth riches, and the daughter devoured the mother. [Lat., Religio peperit divitias et filia devoravit matrem.]
A little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds to religion.
God's first creature, which was light.
The human understanding is no dry light, but receives infusion from the will and affections; which proceed sciences which may be called "sciences as one would." For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research; sober things, because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature, from superstition; the light of experience, from arrogance and pride; things not commonly believed, out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Numberless in short are the ways, and sometimes imperceptible, in which the affections color and infect the understanding.
Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.
A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times; and which have much veneratoin, but no rest.
If I had always served God as I have served you, Madam, I should not have great account to render at my death.