Francis Bacon Quotes
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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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There is no secrecy comparable to celerity.
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Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
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A man that is young in years may be old in hours if he have lost no time.
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I want to make portraits and images. I don't know how. Out of despair, I just use paint anyway. Suddenly the things you make coagulate and take on just the shape you intend. Totally accurate marks, which are outside representational marks.
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As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.
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He that hath knowledge spareth his words.
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There are many wise men that have secret hearts and transparent countenances.
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Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread.
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Those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts.
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A much talking judge is an ill-tuned cymbal.
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Of great wealth there is no real use, except in its distribution, the rest is just conceit.
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If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.
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I would like, in my arbitrary way, to bring one nearer to the actual human being.
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Even within the most beautiful landscape, in the trees, under the leaves the insects are eating each other; violence is a part of life.
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A man finds himself seven years older the day after his marriage.
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Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.
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There is no doubt but men of genius and leisure may carry our method to greater perfection, but, having had long experience, we have found none equal to it for the commodiousness it affords in working with the Understanding.
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It is impossible to love and to be wise.
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I loathe my own face, and I've done self-portraits because I've had nobody else to do.
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One always starts work with the subject, no matter how tenuous it is, and one constructs an artificial structure by which one can trap the reality of the subject-matter that one has started from.
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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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Nay, number (itself) in armies, importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for (as Virgil saith) it never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.
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For fountains, they are a Great Beauty and Refreshment, but Pools mar all, and make the Garden unwholesome, and full of Flies and Frogs.