Francis Bacon Quotes
-
Of all the things in nature, the formation and endowment of man was singled out by the ancients.
-
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.
-
There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise.
-
The place of justice is a hallowed place.
-
There is a cunning which we in England call the rning of the cat in the pan.
-
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.
-
If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again.
-
Silence is the virtue of fools.
-
Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.
-
Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns the water, or but writes in dust.
-
Suspicions that the mind, of itself, gathers, are but buzzes; but suspicions that are artificially nourished and put into men's heads by the tales and whisperings of others, have stings.
-
What then remains but that we still should cry Not to be born, or, being born, to die?
-
Jesus would have been one of the best photographers that ever existed. He was always looking at the beauty of people souls. In fact Jesus was constantly making pictures of God in people's life by looking at their souls and exposing them to his light.
-
The breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air than in the hand.
-
The way of fortune is like the milky way in the sky; which is a meeting, or knot, of a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together : so are there a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.
-
I like, you may say, the glitter and colour that comes from the mouth, and I've always hoped in a sense to be able to paint the mouth like Monet painted a sunset.
-
Since custom is the principal magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavor to obtain good customs.
-
The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.
-
He that hath knowledge spareth his words.
-
The serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself.
-
There was never law, or sect, or opinion did so much magnify goodness, as the Christian religion doth.
-
Great boldness is seldom without some absurdity.
-
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.
-
God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.