Francis Bacon Quotes
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Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature. Beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.
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The sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before.
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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 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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I usually accept bribes from both sides so that tainted money can never influence my decision.
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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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An artist must learn to be nourished by his passions and by his despairs.
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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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Perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures.
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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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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 defers his charity 'till he is dead, is (if a man weighs it rightly) rather liberal of another man's, than of his own.
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We rise to great heights by a winding staircase of small steps.
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The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
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It's not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity.
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Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.
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When you wander, as you often delight to do, you wander indeed, and give never such satisfaction as the curious time requires. This is not caused by any natural defect, but first for want of election, when you, having a large and fruitful mind, should not so much labour what to speak as to find what to leave unspoken. Rich soils are often to be weeded.
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The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
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There arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind.
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Anger is certainly a kind of baseness; as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns; children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware, that they carry their anger rather with scorn, than with fear; so that they may seem rather to be above the injury, than below it; which is a thing easily done, if a man will give law to himself in it.
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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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So ambitious men, if they find the way open for their rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy than dangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they become secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased, when things go backward.
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It is a true rule that love is ever rewarded, either with the reciproque or with an inward and secret contempt.
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Those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts.