Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.

Advice

There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self.

Age and Aging

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.

Atheism

It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

Bachelor

Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.

Certainty

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.

Cheerfulness

To be free minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one of the best precepts of long lasting.

Consistency

Look to make your course regular, that men may know beforehand what they may expect.

Creation

God's first creature, which was light.

Death and Dying

I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.

Discretion

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.

Doubt

Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.

Facts

Men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts.

Fate

Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.

Forgiveness

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

History and Historians

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

Humankind

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.

Innovation

As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.

Knowledge

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

Learning

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

Love

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.

Money

If money be not they 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.

Opportunity

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

Parents and Parenting

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their grieves and fears.

Poetry and Poets

The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man's body.

Prejudice

All colors will agree in the dark.

Prosperity

Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.

Questions

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

Revenge

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

Silence

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Studying

I would live to study, and not study to live.

Time and Time Management

To choose time is to save time.

Truth

It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tost upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage ground of truth... and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below.

Wealth

The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.

Youth

Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.