The following are sentences extracted from the writings of Lord Bacon:

It is a strange desire which men have, to seek power and lose liberty.

Children increase the cares of life: but they mitigate the remembrance of death.

Round dealing is the honour of man's nature; and a mixture of falsehood is like alloy in gold and silve, which may make the metal work the better, but it debaseth it.

Death openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy.

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

He that studieth revenge, keepeth his own wounds green.

It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished; but the good things which belong to adversity are to be admired.

He that cannot see well, let him go softly.

If a man be thought secret, it inviteth discovery; as the more close air sucketh in the more open.

Keep your authority wholly from your children, not so your purse. Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards new men when they rise. For the distance is altered; and it is like a deceit of the eye, that when others come on, they think themselves go back.

As in nature things move more violently to their place, and calmly in their place so virtue in ambition is violent; in authority, settled and calm.

Boldness in civil business, is like pronunciation in the orator of Demosthenes; the first, second, and third thing.

Boldness is blind: whereof 'tis ill in counsel, but good in execution. For in counsel it is good to see dangers, in execution not to see them, except they be very great.

Without goodnature, man is but a better kind of vermin.

God never wrought miracles to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it.

The great atheists indeed are hypocrites, who are always handling holy things, but without feeling, so as they must needs be cauterized in the end.

The master of superstition is the people. And in all superstition, wise men follow fools.

In removing superstitions, care should be had, that (as it fareth in ill purgings) the good be not taken away with the bad; which commonly is done, when the people is the physician.

He that goeth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.

It is a miserable state of mind (and yet it is commonly the case of kings) to have few things to desire, and many to fear.

Depression of the nobility may make a king more absolute, but less

safe.

All precepts concerning kings are, in effect, comprehended in these remembrances: Remember thou art a man; remember thou art God's vicegerent. The one bridleth their power, and the other their will.

Things will have their first or second agitation. If they be not tossed upon the arguments of counsel, they will be tossed upon the waves of fortune.

The true composition of a counsellor is rather to be skilled in his master's business than his nature; for then he is like to advise him, and not to feed his humour.

Fortune sometimes turneth the handle of the bottle, which is easy to be taken hold of; and after the belly, which is hard to grasp.

Generally it is good to commit the beginning of all great actions to Argus with an hundred eyes; and the ends of them to Briareus with an hundred hands; first to watch and then to speed.

There is a great difference betwixt a cunning man and a wise man. There be that can pack the cards, who yet cannot play well; they are good in canvasses and factions, and yet otherwise mean men.

Extreme self-lovers will set a man's house on fire, though it were but to roast their eggs.

New things, like strangers, are more admired and less favoured.

It were good 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.

They that reverence too much old times are but a scorn to the

new.

The Spaniards and Spartans have been noted to be of small despatch. Mi venga la muerte de Spagna-Let my death come from Spain; for then it will be sure to be long a-coming.

You had better take for business a man somewhat absurd, than over-formal.

Those who want friends to whom to open their griefs, are cannibals of their own hearts.

Number itself importeth not much in armies, where the people are of weak courage; for (as Virgil says) it never troubles a wolf how many the sheep be.

Let states, that aim at greatness, take heed how their nobility and gentry multiply too fast. In coppice woods, if you leave your staddles too thick, you shall never have clean underwood, but shrubs and bushes.

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.

Suspicions among thoughts are like bats among birds, they ever fly by twilight.

Base natures, if they find themselves once suspected, will never be

true.

Men ought to find the difference between saltness and bitterness. Certainly he that hath a satirical vein, as he maketh others afraid of his wit, so he had need be afraid of others' memory.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.

Men seem neither well to understand their riches, nor their strength; of the former they believe greater things than they should and of the latter much less. And from hence fatal pillars have bounded the progress of learning.

Riches are the baggage of virtue; they cannot be spared nor left behind, but they hinder the march.

Great riches have sold more men than ever they have bought out. He that defers his charity till he is dead, is (if a man weighs it rightly) rather liberal of another man's, than of his own.

Ambition is like choler; if he can move, it makes men active; if it be stopped, it becomes adust, and makes men melancholy.

To take a soldier without ambition, is to pull off his spurs.

Some ambitious men seem as screens to princes in matters of danger and envy. For no man will take such parts, except he be like the seeled dove, that mounts and mounts, because he cannot see about him.

Princes and states should choose such ministers as are more sensible of duty than rising; and should discern a busy nature from a willing mind.

A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other.

If a man look sharp and attentively, he shall see fortune; for though she be blind, she is not invisible.

Usury bringeth the treasure of the realm or state into a few hands: for the usurer being at certainties, and the others at uncertainties; at the end of the game most of the money will be in the box.

Virtue is best in a body that hath rather dignity of presence than beauty of aspect. The beautiful prove accomplished, but not of great spirit; and study, for the most part, rather behaviour than

virtue.

The best part of beauty is that which a picture cannot express.

He who builds a fair house upon an ill seat commits himself to prison.

If you would work on any man, you must either know his naturę

and fashions, and so lead him; or his ends, and so persuade him ; or his weaknesses and disadvantages, and so awe him; or those that have interest in him, and so govern him.

Costly followers (among whom we may reckon those who are importunate in suits) are not to be liked; lest, while a man maketh his train longer, he maketh his wings shorter.

Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.

Seneca saith well, that anger is like rain, that breaks itself upon that it falls.

Excusations, cessions, modesty itself well governed, are but arts of ostentation.

High treason is not written in ice; that when the body relenteth, the impression should go away.

The best governments are always subject to be like the fairest crystals, when every icicle or grain is seen, which in a fouler stone is never perceived.

In great place ask counsel of both times: of the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.

The virtue of prosperity is temperance, of adversity fortitude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of God's favour.

SHORT NOTES FOR CIVIL CONVERSATION.

To deceive men's expectations generally (with cautel1) argueth a staid mind, and unexpected constancy; viz., in matters of fear, anger, sudden joy or grief, and all things which may affect or alter the mind in public or sudden accidents, or such like.

It is necessary to use a steadfast countenance, not wavering with action, as in moving the head or hand too much, which showeth a fantastical light and fickle operation of the spirit, and consequently like mind as gesture: only it is sufficient, with leisure, to use a modest action in either.

In all kinds of speech, either pleasant, grave, severe, or ordinary, it is convenient to speak leisurely, and rather drawingly, than hastily; because hasty speech confounds the memory, and oftentimes (besides unseemliness) drives a man either to a nonplus or un

1 Caution.

seemly stammering, harping upon that which should follow; whereas a slow speech confirmeth the memory, addeth a conceit of wisdom to the hearers, besides a seemliness of speech and countenance.

To desire in discourse to hold all arguments is ridiculous, wanting true judgment; for in all things no man can be exquisite.1

To have common-places to discourse, and to want variety, is both tedious to the hearers, and shows a shallowness of conceit2; therefore it is good to vary, and suit speeches with the present occasions; and to have a moderation in all our speeches, especially in jesting, of religion, state, great persons, weighty and important business, poverty, or anything deserving pity.

A long continued speech, without a good speech of interlocution, showeth slowness: and a good reply without a good set speech, showeth shallowness and weakness.

To use many circumstances, ere you come to matter, is wearisome: and to use none at all, is but blunt.

Bushfulness is a great hindrance to a man, both of uttering his conceit, and understanding what is propounded unto him; wherefore it is good to press himself forwards with discretion, both in speech and company of the better sort.

Usus promptos facit.

Perfect or without fault.

* In this sense,

'idens.*

• Here conceit means opinion.