Francis Bacon Children Quotations

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

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. He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marryA young man not yet, an elder man not at all.

Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness; as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns; children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware, that they carry their anger rather with scorn, than with fear; so that they may seem rather to be above the injury, than below it; which is a thing easily done, if a man will give law to himself in it.

There are some other that account wife and children but as bills of charges

He that hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.

You cannot teach a child to take care of himself unless you will let him try to take care of himself. He will make mistakes and out of these mistakes will come his wisdom.

Parents who wish to train up their children in the way they should go must go in the way in which they would have their children go.

Boldness is a child of ignorance

Children sweeten labours. But they make misfortune more bitter. They increase the care of life. But they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity of generation is common to beasts. But memory, merit and noble works are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men which have sought to express the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed.

In civil business; what first? boldness; what second and third? boldness: and yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness.

... wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity.