Francis Bacon Quotes
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Nil terribile nisi ipse timor.
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It is true that may hold in these things, which is the general root of superstition; namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.
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There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little, and therefore men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not keep their suspicions in smother.
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A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.
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We must see whether the same clock with weights will go faster at the top of a mountain or at the bottom of a mine; it is probable, if the pull of the weights decreases on the mountain and increases in the mine, that the earth has real attraction.
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In one and the same fire, clay grows hard and wax melts.
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Upon a given body to generate and superinduce a new nature or new natures is the work and aim of human power. To discover the Form of a given nature, or its true difference, or its causal nature, or fount of its emanation... this is the work and aim of human knowledge.
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A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
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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.
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It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.
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If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
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Disciples do owe their masters only a temporary belief, and a suspension of their own judgment till they be fully instructed.
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Salomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion.
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Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
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The place of justice is a hallowed place.
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Knowledge and human power are synonymous.
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Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.
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Like strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones.
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There is in man's nature a secret inclination and motion towards love of others, which, if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable, as it is seen sometimes in friars. Nuptial love maketh mankind, friendly love perfecteth it, but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.
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In things that are tender and unpleasing, it is good to break the ice by some one whose words are of less weight, and to reserve the more weighty voice to come in as by chance.
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Above all, every relation must be considered as suspicious, which depends in any degree upon religion, as the prodigies of Livy: And no less so, everything that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors, who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for falsehood and fable.
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Out of monuments, names, words proverbs ...and the like, we do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time.
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A forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread it out.
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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 marry. A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.