Quotes from book

Essays

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.”

“Boldness is ever blind; for it seeth not dangers and inconveniences.”

“Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.”

“Seeming wise men may make shift to get opinion; but let no man choose them for employment; for certainly you were better take for business, a man somewhat absurd, than over-formal.”

“Come home to men's business and bosoms.”

“And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air.”

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public.”

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

“It is yet a higher speech of his than the other, “It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.””

“For there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself, as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, That it is impossible to love, and to be wise.”

“Beware of sudden change, in any great point of diet, and, if necessity inforce it, fit the rest to it. For it is a secret both in nature and state, that it is safer to change many things, than one.”

“Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that traveleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.”

“Base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark.”

“Suspicions amongst thoughts, are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight. Certainly they are to be repressed, or at least well guarded: for they cloud the mind; they leese friends; and they check with business, whereby business cannot go on currently and constantly. They dispose kings to tyranny, husbands to jealousy, wise men to irresolution and melancholy. They are defects, not in the heart, but in the brain; for they take place in the stoutest natures.”

“Princes are like heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration but no rest.”

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

“The great atheists, indeed are hypocrites; which are ever handling holy things, but without feeling; so as they must needs be cauterized in the end.”

“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.”

“He that commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.”