Francis Bacon Quotes
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A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.
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To seek to extinguish anger utterly is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: 'Be angry, but sin not.' 'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.'
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In all superstition wise men follow fools.
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Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.
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Knowledge and human power are synonymous.
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A picture should be a re-creation of an event rather than an illustration of an object; but there is no tension in the picture unless there is a struggle with the object.
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I don't believe art is available; it's rare and curious and should be completely isolated; one is more aware of its magic the more it is isolated.
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Learning teaches how to carry things in suspense, without prejudice, till you resolve it.
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The doctrines of religion are resolved into carefulness; carefulness into vigorousness; vigorousness into guiltlessness; guiltlessness into abstemiousness; abstemiousness into cleanliness; cleanliness into godliness.
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A cat will never drown if she sees the shore.
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Such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happen much oftener.
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Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.
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The only really interesting thing is what happens between two people in a room.
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The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other.
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Hope is the most beneficial of all the affections, and doth much to the prolongation of life.
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Great Hypocrites are the real atheists.
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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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God never wrought miracles to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it.
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To conclude, therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or the book of God's works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together.
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Great changes are easier than small ones.
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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.
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Why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me?
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It would be unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.
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But the idols of the Market Place are the most troublesome of all: idols which have crept into the understanding through their alliances with words and names. For men believe that their reason governs words. But words turn and twist the understanding. This it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences inactive. Words are mostly cut to the common fashion and draw the distinctions which are most obvious to the common understanding. Whenever an understanding of greater acuteness or more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the true distinctions of nature, words complain.