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 surest way to prevent seditions...is to take away the matter of them.
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...to invent is to discover that we know not, and not to recover or resummon that which we already know.
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In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow the name of the world; as to say, 'The world says,' or 'There is a speech abroad.'
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It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.
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A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
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Certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.
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Knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, and therefore where it entereth into a man it makes him swell.
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We only have our nervous system to paint.
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Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.
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The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall: but in charity there is no excess; neither can angel nor man come in danger by it.
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If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.
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The great atheists, indeed are hypocrites; which are ever handling holy things, but without feeling; so as they must needs be cauterized in the end.
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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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Men are rather beholden ... generally to chance or anything else, than to logic, for the invention of arts and sciences.
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But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness.
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Vices of the time; vices of the man.
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In revenge a man is but even with his enemy; for it is a princely thing to pardon, and Solomon saith it is the glory of a man to pass over a transgression.
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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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For knowledge, too, is itself power.
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Judges ought to be more learned, than witty, more reverend, than plausible, and more advised, than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.
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By indignities men come to dignities.
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The greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel.
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Half of science is putting forth the right questions.