The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

‘Essays’ (1625) ‘Of Boldness’.
Boldness is an ill keeper of promise.
‘Essays’ (1625) ‘Of Boldness’
Houses are built to live in and not to look on; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity,
except where both may be had.
‘Essays’ (1625) ‘Of Building’
Light gains make heavy purses.
‘Essays’ (1625) ‘Of Ceremonies and Respects’
He that is too much in anything, so that he giveth another occasion of satiety, maketh himself
cheap.
‘Essays’ (1625) ‘Of Ceremonies and Respects’
Books will speak plain when counsellors blanch.
‘Essays’ (1625) ‘Of Counsel’
There be that can pack the cards and yet cannot play well; so there are some that are good in
canvasses and factions, that are otherwise weak men.
‘Essays’ (1625) ‘Of Cunning’
In things that are tender and unpleasing, it is good to break the ice by some whose words are of
less weight, and to reserve the more weighty voice to come in as by chance.
‘Essays’ (1625) ‘Of Cunning’
I knew one that when he wrote a letter he would put that which was most material in the
postscript, as if it had been a bymatter.
‘Essays’ (1625) ‘Of Cunning’
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
‘Essays’ (1625) ‘Of Cunning’
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is
increased with tales, so is the other.
‘Essays’ (1625) ‘Of Death’
There is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death.
And therefore death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him
that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honour aspireth to
it; grief flieth to it.
‘Essays’ (1625) ‘Of Death’
It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the
other.
‘Essays’ (1625) ‘Of Death’
Above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is Nunc dimittis, when a man hath obtained worthy
ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and
extinguisheth envy.
‘Essays’ (1625) ‘Of Death’