Francis Bacon Quotes
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It is natural to die as to be born.
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This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
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All artists are vain, they long to be recognized and to leave something to posterity. They want to be loved, and at the same time they want to be free. But nobody is free.
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Liberty of speech invites and provokes liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man's knowledge.
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Brutes by their natural instinct have produced many discoveries, whereas men by discussion and the conclusions of reason have given birth to few or none.
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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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A man finds himself seven years older the day after his marriage.
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I foresee it and yet I hardly ever carry it out as I foresee it. It transforms itself by the actual paint. I don't in fact know very often what the paint will do, and it does many things which are very much better than I could make it do.
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Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.
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There are many wise men that have secret hearts and transparent countenances.
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Nor is mine a trumpet which summons and excites men to cut each other to pieces with mutual contradictions, or to quarrel and fight with one another; but rather to make peace between themselves, and turning with united forces against the Nature of Things.
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Friends are thieves of time.
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The greatest trust, between man and man, is the trust of giving counsel. For in other confidences, men commit the parts of life; their lands, their goods, their children, their credit, some particular affair; but to such as they make their counsellors, they commit the whole: by how much the more, they are obliged to all faith and integrity.
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There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine. That is to say, between certain empty dogmas, and the true signatures and marks set upon the works of creation as they are found in nature.
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A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
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There is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals.
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Come home to men's business and bosoms.
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A much talking judge is an ill-tuned cymbal.
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Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.
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If there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire.
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No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic, and certainly, to a kingdom or estate, a just and honourable war is the true exercise.
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Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second. For there is a youth in thoughts, as well as in ages. And yet the invention of young men, is more lively than that of old; and imaginations stream into their minds better, and, as it were, more divinely.
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The only hope [of science] ... is in genuine induction.
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The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men is the vicissitude of sects and religions.