Francis Bacon Quotes
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Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
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There was a young man in Rome that was very like Augustus Caesar; Augustus took knowledge of it and sent for the man, and asked him "Was your mother never at Rome?" He answered "No Sir; but my father was."
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If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.
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There is no secrecy comparable to celerity.
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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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The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.
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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.
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It is impossible to love and to be wise.
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Such philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume of subtile, sublime, or delectable speculation but shall be operative to the endowment and betterment of man's life.
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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 much talking judge is an ill-tuned cymbal.
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I would like, in my arbitrary way, to bring one nearer to the actual human being.
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It is idle to expect any great advancement in science from the superinducing and engrafting of new things upon old. We must begin anew from the very foundations, unless we would revolve for ever in a circle with mean and contemptible progress.
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There are many wise men that have secret hearts and transparent countenances.
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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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In civil business; what first? boldness; what second and third? boldness: and yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness.
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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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Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
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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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A man that is young in years may be old in hours if he have lost no time.
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Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.
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Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.
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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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The mystery lies in the irrationality by which you make appearance - if it is not irrational, you make illustration.