Society and the World

Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.

Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.

I have taken all knowledge to be my province.

Nature cannot be ordered about, except by obeying her.

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

The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible.

The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible.

God forbid that we should give out a dream of our own imagination for a pattern of the world.

It is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set a house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs.

It is the wisdom of the crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour.

Be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others.

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.

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.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.

To spend too much time in studies is sloth.

Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

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

I knew one that when he wrote a letter he would put that which was most material in the postscript, as if it had been a bymatter.