Francis Bacon Quotes
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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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I usually accept bribes from both sides so that tainted money can never influence my decision.
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A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
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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 surest way to prevent seditions...is to take away the matter of them.
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For man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection: and they be three wisdoms of divers natures, which do often sever: wisdom of the behaviour, wisdom of business, and wisdom of state.
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A man finds himself seven years older the day after his marriage.
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The sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before.
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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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Fortune makes him fool, whom she makes her darling.
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We rise to great heights by a winding staircase of small steps.
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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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...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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The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.
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Those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts.
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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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If my people look as if they're in a dreadful fix, it's because I can't get them out of a technical dilemma.
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The greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel.
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There is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom.
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Ipsa scientia potestas est. (Knowledge itself is power.)
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There arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind.
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Opportunity makes a thief.
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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.
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An artist must learn to be nourished by his passions and by his despairs.