The Essays, or Counsels, Civil and Moral

First published in 1597 with ten essays and expanded over three editions to fifty-eight by 1625, Bacon's essays are short, plainspoken, and unsentimental — closer to a statesman's field notes than to Montaigne's wandering confessions. "Of Truth," "Of Death," "Of Friendship," "Of Ambition": each one a few pages of a very sharp mind thinking about how to live among other people. Public domain, added to The Archive.\n\nRead the full text free at Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/575