Great Throughts Treasury

"Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon."

"By far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this — that men despair and think things impossible."

"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator."

"It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man, so weak, but it mates, and masters, the fear of death; and therefore, death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear preoccupieth it."

"No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common notions, and to apply the understanding, thus made fair and even, to a fresh examination of particulars. Thus it happens that human knowledge, as we have it, is a mere medley and ill-digested mass, made up of much credulity and much accident, and also of the childish notions which we at first imbibed."

"In charity there is no excess."

"Seek first the virtues of the mind; and other things either will come, or will not be wanted"

"The greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men: as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a tarrasse, for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate."

"Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule."

"Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature. Beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything."

"The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded."

"The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds. And though there be many things in nature which are singular and unmatched, yet it devises for them parallels and conjugates and relatives which do not exist. Hence the fiction that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles, spirals and dragons being (except in name) utterly rejected."

"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."

"The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond... But he is no less an unskilled and shallow philosopher who seeks causes of that which is most general, than he who in things subordinate and subaltern omits to do so."

"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. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate."

"There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion."

"Virtue is like a rich stone — best plain set."

"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. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience."

"Virtue is like precious odors — most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed."

"There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried."

"A bachelor's life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner."

"A bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint."

"A beautiful face is a silent commendation."

"A civil war is like the heat of a fever; but a foreign war is like the heat of exercise, and serveth to keep the body in health."

"A crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."

"A dance is a measured pace, as a verse is a measured speech."

"A forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread it out."

"A good conscience is a continual feast."

"A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation."

"A good continued speech, without a good speech of interlocution, shows slowness; and a good reply, or second speech, without a good settled speech, showeth shallowness and weakness."

"A gentleman fell very sick, and a friend said to him, “Send for a physician:” but the sick man answered, “It is no matter; for if I die, I will die at leisure.”"

"A great and potent nobility addeth majesty to a monarch, but diminisheth power; and putteth life and spirit into the people, but presseth their fortune. It is well when nobles are not too great for sovereignty nor for justice; and yet maintained in that height as the insolency of inferiors may be broken upon them before it come on too fast upon the majesty of kings. A numerous nobility causeth poverty and inconvenience in a state, for it is a surcharge of expense; and, it being of necessity that many of the nobility fall in time to be weak in fortune, it maketh a kind of disproportion between honor and means."

"A froward retention of custom is as turbulent a thing as an innovation; and they that reverence too much old times are but a scorn to the new. It were good, therefore, that men in their innovations would follow the example of time itself, which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be perceived."

"A good name is like a precious ointment; it filleth all around about, and will not easily away; for the odors of ointments are more durable than those of flowers."

"A gentleman punctual of his word, when he had heard that two had agreed upon a meeting, and the one neglected his hour, would say of him, He is a young man then."

"A gamester, the greater master he is in his art, the worse man he is."

"A just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war."

"A king that setteth to sale seats of justice oppresseth the people; for he teacheth his judges to sell justice; and “pretio parata pretio venditur justitia.”"

"A little knowledge of science makes man an atheist, but an in-depth study of science makes him a believer in God."

"A liar is a bravo towards God and a coward towards men."

"A little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds to religion; for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further.-But when it beholdeth the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity."

"A little science estranges a man from God. A lot of science brings him back."

"A long table, and a square table, or a seat about the walls, seem things of form, but are things of substance: for at a long table a few at the upper end, in effect, sway all the business; but in the other form there is more use of the counsellorsÂ’ opinions that sit lower."

"A man cannot speak to his son but as a father, to his wife but as a husband, to his enemy but upon terms; whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person."

"A man cannot tell whether Apelles or Albert Durer were the more triflers, whereof the one would make a personage by geometrical proportions, the other by taking the best parts of divers faces to make one excellent."

"A man dies as often as he loses his friends."

"A man finds himself seven years older the day after his marriage."

"A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where friendship is, all offices of life are, as it were, granted to him and his deputy; for he may exercise them by his friend. How many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself! A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them; a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate, or beg, and a number of the like: but all these things are graceful in a friendÂ’s mouth which are blushing in a manÂ’s own."

"A man may think, if he will, that two eyes see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth always more than a looker-on;Â… but when all is done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth business strait."

"A man is an ill husband of his honor that entereth into any action the failing wherein may disgrace him more than the carrying of it through can honor him."