Francis Bacon Quotes
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The obliteration of the evil hath been practised by two means, some kind of redemption or expiation of that which is past, and an inception or account de novo for the time to come. But this part seemeth sacred and religious, and justly; for all good moral philosophy (as was said) is but a handmaid to religion.
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The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all as things now are with slight endeavour and scanty success.
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For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.
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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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Learning hath his infancy, when it is but beginning and almost childish; then his youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile; then his strength of years, when it is solid and reduced; and lastly his old age, when it waxeth dry and exhaust.
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There is no secrecy comparable to celerity.
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A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fullness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce.
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Wise sayings are not only for ornament, but for action and business, having a point or edge, whereby knots in business are pierced and discovered.
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Nothing doth so much keep men out of the Church, and drive men out of the Church, as breach of unity.
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All superstition is much the same whether it be that of astrology, dreams, omen, retributive judgment, or the like, in all of which the deluded believers observe events which are fulfilled, but neglect and pass over their failure, though it be much more common.
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Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in science by reverence for antiquity, by the authority of men counted great in philosophy, and then by general consent.
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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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There is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom.
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Money is a great servant but a bad master.
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And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air.
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Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.
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To seek to extinguish anger utterly is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: 'Be angry, but sin not.' 'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.'
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Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.
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And as for Mixed Mathematics, I may only make this prediction, that there cannot fail to be more kinds of them, as nature grows further disclosed.
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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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If vices were profitable, the virtuous man would be the sinner.
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Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
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As the births of living creatures are at first ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.
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A good conscience is a continual feast.