Then Bless Thy Secret Growth, Nor Catch

He That Hath Wife And Children Hath Given Hostages To Fortune; For They Are Impediments To Great Enterprises, Either Of Virtue Or Mischief.

The Errors Of Young Men Are The Ruin Of Business, But The Errors Of Aged Men Amount To This, That More Might Have Been Done, Or Sooner.

Believing That I Was Born For The Service Of Mankind, And Regarding The Care Of The Commonwealth As A Kind Of Common Property Which, Like The Air And The Water, Belongs To Everybody, I Set Myself To Consider In What Way Mankind Might Be Best Served, And What Service I Was Myself Best Fitted By Nature To Perform.

The Great Advantages Of Simulation And Dissimulation Are Three. First To Lay Asleep Opposition And To Surprise. For Where A Man's Intentions Are Published, It Is An Alarum To Call Up All That Are Against Them. The Second Is To Reserve A Man's Self A Fair Retreat: For If A Man Engage Himself, By A Manifest Declaration, He Must Go Through, Or Take A Fall. The Third Is, The Better To Discover The Mind Of Another. For To Him That Opens Himself, Men Will Hardly Show Themselves Adverse; But Will Fair Let Him Go On, And Turn Their Freedom Of Speech To Freedom Of Thought.

Moreover, The Works Already Known Are Due To Chance And Experiment Rather Than To Sciences; For The Sciences We Now Possess Are Merely Systems For The Nice Ordering And Setting Forth Of Things Already Invented; Not Methods Of Invention Or Directions For New Works.