Francis Bacon

I have often found that a man’s true nature cannot be seen in smooth times. When a fortune is good and the world smiles, men show little of their substance; they are content to wear the mask of ease. But when pressure comes, when the path is blocked and the load is heavy, then the character is revealed. I learned this watching men in courts where favor shifts like wind.…

Friend, look at your own hands and see where you are rashly placing them before you understand the cost. Do not begin a new project unless you are certain that the ruin of the attempt will not stain your name more deeply than the success would have adorned it. This is the first duty of any who seek to live well in the world: measure the danger of the fall…

The fire had died down to cold embers in my study, the only light coming from a tallow candle that flickered against the draft. I sat alone with my papers, tracing the names of kings who fell not by sword but by the soft treachery of their own bedsides. The ink felt heavy on the page as I wrote of Edward and his wife, seeing how the crown can be…

I have watched men cling to offices long past their use, thinking duty binds them when in truth only fear does. They stay while the roof rots and the walls lean, waiting for a command to depart that never comes. This is not prudence but a sickness of the spirit; they mistake their own decay for a station worth holding. I tell you, when the floor shakes beneath your feet,…

I remember a council chamber where a young lawyer stood before me, his logic flawless and his reputation rising like smoke from a fresh fire. I felt a sharp heat behind my ribs, not because he was wrong, but because he was right. My own mind, weary of the same old arguments, sought to dim his light by finding faults in his attire or questioning his lineage. I did not…

I have watched men ruin their own hands by pretending they are afraid when they mean to strike. When a captain hides his true plan, he may surprise the enemy once, but he loses the confidence of his crew forever. They no longer follow him because they cannot tell if he is leading them to victory or to a trap. A man who must always wear a mask walks alone;…