Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.
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.
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.
Wonder is the seed of knowledge
Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.
Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand--and melting like a snowflake...
It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself.
Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to know which he doth not.
Money is a great servant but a bad master.
The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.
In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.
Age appears best in four things: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read.
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted ...but to weigh and consider.
In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.
Ipsa scientia potestas est. Knowledge itself is power.
It is impossible to love and be wise.
The general root of superstition : namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.
If we are to achieve things never before accomplished we must employ methods never before attempted
Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends
The less people speak of their greatness, the more we think of it.
Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.
God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation.
There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.
The serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself.
Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.
The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea.
The worst solitute is to be destitute of true friendship.
Great boldness is seldom without some absurdity.
The only really interesting thing is what happens between two people in a room.
Money is like manure, its only good if you spread it around.
Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.
The remedy is worse than the disease.
Silence is the virtue of fools.
He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.
By far the best proof is experience.
He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.
A man that is young in years may be old in hours if he have lost no time.
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.
Nature cannot be commanded except by being obeyed.
A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
Salomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion.
The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.
Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.
I will never be an old man. To me old age is always 15 years older than I am.
For friends... do but look upon good Books: they are true friends, that will neither flatter nor dissemble.
Parents who wish to train up their children in the way they should go must go in the way in which they would have their children go.
If a man is gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows that he is a citizen of the world.
Knowledge is power.
There Are But Two Tragedies in Life-One is One's Inability to attain One's Heart's Desire-The Other Is To Have It!
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
A Man must make his opportunity,as oft as find it
Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.
Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.
Books speak plain when counselors blanch.
For no man can forbid the spark nor tell whence it may come.
The surest way to prevent seditions...is to take away the matter of them.
Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.
People of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon and seldom drive business home to it's conclusion, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.
We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake...
 draws all things else to support and agree with it. ){kind=small}
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.
A false friend is more dangerous than an open enemy
To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none.
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.
Truth is a naked and open daylight, that does not show the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. . . A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure
Revenge is a king of wild justice.
If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.
Constancy is the foundation of virtues
Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest shall be provided or its loss shall not be felt.
To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
To say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men.
The virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude.
