He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. – Francis Bacon
The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding. – Francis Bacon
Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again. – Francis Bacon
Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution. – Francis Bacon
The face of nature and civilization in this our country is to a certain point a very sufficient literary field. But it will yield its secrets only to a really grasping imagination. To write well and worthily of American things one need even more than elsewhere to be a master. – Henry James