Over 40,000 Famous Quotes Sorted By Topic and Author

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.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast.

Man was formed for society.

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.

There arises from a bad and inapt formation of words, a wonderful obstruction to the mind.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

All rising to great place is by winding stair.

And let him be sure to leave other men their turns to speak.

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.

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; morals, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

The sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before.

The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other.

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.

But no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of Truth.

Vain-glorious men are the scorn of the wise, the admiration of fools, the idols of paradise, and the slaves of their own vaunts.

Vices of the time; vices of the man.

Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.