Francis Bacon Quotes
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Since my logic aims to teach and instruct the understanding, not that it may with the slender tendrils of the mind snatch at and lay hold of abstract notions (as the common logic does), but that it may in very truth dissect nature, and discover the virtues and actions of bodies, with their laws as determined in matter; so that this science flows not merely from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things.
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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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The sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before.
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There arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind.
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By far the best proof is experience.
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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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Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.
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Perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures.
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Custom is the principle magistrate of man's life.
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The greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel.
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Some paint comes across directly onto the nervous system and other paint tells you the story in a long diatribe through the brain.
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By this means we presume we have established for ever, a true and legitimate marriage between the Empirical and Rational faculty; whose fastidious and unfortunate divorce and separation hath troubled and disordered the whole race and generation of mankind.
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...those experiments be not only esteemed which have an immediate and present use, but those principally which are of most universal consequence for invention of other experiments, and those which give more light to the invention of causes; for the invention of the mariner's needle, which giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for navigation than the invention of the sails, which give the motion.
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I usually accept bribes from both sides so that tainted money can never influence my decision.
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Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.
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Glorious men are the scorn of wise men, the admiration of fools, the idols of parasites, and the slaves of their own vaunts.
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Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.
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But by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this - that men despair and think things impossible.
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But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses; in that things which strike the sense outweigh things which do not immediately strike it, though they be more important. Hence it is that speculation commonly ceases where sight ceases; insomuch that of things invisible there is little or no observation.
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I'm working for myself; what else have I got to work for? How can you work for an audience? What do you imagine an audience would want? I have got nobody to excite except myself, so I am always surprised if anyone likes my work sometimes. I suppose I'm very lucky, of course, to be able to earn my living by something that really absorbs me to try to do, if that is what you call luck.
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It's not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity.
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Those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts.
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The mystery lies in the irrationality by which you make appearance - if it is not irrational, you make illustration.
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The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search for truth. So it does more harm than good.