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| Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study. | 1 |
| Ambition is like choler, which is a humor that maketh men active, earnest, full of alacrity, and stirring, if it be not stopped: but if it be stopped, and cannot have its way, it becometh a dust (hot and fiery) and thereby malign and venomous. | 2 |
| Antiquity is like fame … her head is muffled from our sight. | 3 |
| Beauty is as summer fruits, which are easy to corrupt and that cannot last. | 4 |
| Men’s behaviour should be like their apparel, not too straight or point device, but free for exercise or motion. | 5 |
| But certainly, some there are that know the resorts and falls of business that can not sink into the main of it; like a house that hath convenient stairs and entries, but never a fair room. | 6 |
| Celerity: like the motion of a bullet in the air, which flieth so swift as it outruns the eye. | 7 |
| If he be compassionate towards the afflictions of others, it shows that his heart is like the noble tree that is wounded itself when it gives the balm. | 8 |
| Base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark. | 9 |
| Differ most, as salt and sugar. | 10 |
| As for discontentments, they are in the politic body like to humors in the natural, which are apt to gather a preternatural heat and to inflame; and let no prince measure the danger of them by this, whether they be just or unjust. | 11 |
| A mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. | 12 |
| Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid; but if persons of quality and judgement concur, then it filleth all round about, and will not easily away; for the odors of ointments are more durable than those of flowers. | 13 |
| Firm as butchers. | 14 |
| Fluctuant, as the ark of Noah. | 15 |
| Forcible as custom. | 16 |
| Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall; and again, it is sometimes like Sibylla’s offer, which at first offereth the commodity at full, then consumeth part and part, and still holdeth up the price. | 17 |
| The way of Fortune is like the milky way in the sky; which is a meeting, or knot, of a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together; so are there a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate. | 18 |
| Honor that is gained and broken upon another hath the quickest reflection, like diamonds cut with facets; and therefore let a man contend to excel any competitors of his in honor, in outshooting them, if he can, in their own bow. | 19 |
| Intermingled like the tares among the wheat. | 20 |
| The distributions and partitions of knowledge are … like the branches of a tree, that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance, before it come to discontinue and break itself into arms and boughs. | 21 |
| Learning is like a lark, that can mount, and sing, and please herself, and nothing else; but may know that she holdeth as well as the hawk, that can soar aloft, and can also descend and strike upon the prey. | 22 |
| Tall men, like tall houses, are usually ill furnished in the upper story. | 23 |
| Monarchy is like a work of nature, well composed both to grow and continue. | 24 |
| Money is like manure; of very little use unless it be spread. | 25 |
| A good name is like a precious ointment; it filleth all around about, and will not easily away; for the odors of ointments are more durable than those of flowers. | 26 |
| Natural to die as to be born. | 27 |
| Odd as the gesticulations and antic motions of the Satyrs. | 28 |
| Perish, through their over-confidence, like Icarus. | 29 |
| Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times; and which have much veneration, but no rest. | 30 |
| At rest, as the ark in the temple. | 31 |
| Round like wells. | 32 |
| Long and curious speeches are as fit for dispatch as a robe, or mantle, with a long train, is for a race. | 33 |
| States, as great engines, move slowly. | 34 |
| Stand at a stay; like a stale at chess, where it is no mate, but yet the game can not stir. | 35 |
| Suspicions amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight. | 36 |
| The stage is more beholding to love than the life of man; for as to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief, sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury. | 37 |
| Truth and falsehood … are like the iron and clay in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s image, they may cleave, but they will not incorporate. | 38 |
| Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set; and surely virtue is best in a body that is comely, though not of delicate features, and that hath rather dignity of presence than beauty of aspect. | 39 |
| Virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. | 40 |
| Virtuous men … like some herbs and spices that give not out their sweet smell till they be broken or crushed. | 41 |
| A civil war, indeed, 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; for, in a slothful peace, both courages will effeminate and manners corrupt. | 42 |
| It is good to take the safest and wariest way in general, like the going softly by one that cannot well see. | 43 |
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