Francis Bacon Quotes
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A lie faces God and shrinks from man.
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'You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God' This canon is the mother of all canons against heresy; the causes of error are two; the ignorance of the will of God, and the ignorance or not sufficient consideration of his power.
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For a man to love again where he is loved, it is the charity of publicans contracted by mutual profit and good offices; but to love a man's enemies is one of the cunningest points of the law of Christ, and an imitation of the divine nature.
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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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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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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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Men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts.
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If there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire.
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The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies.
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Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.
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There are two books laid before us to study, to prevent our falling into error; first, the volume of the Scriptures, which reveal the will of God; then the volume of the Creatures, which express His power.
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A good name is like precious ointment ; it filleth all round about, and will not easily away; for the odors of ointments are more durable than those of flowers.
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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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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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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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The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds. And though there be many things in nature which are singular and unmatched, yet it devises for them parallels and conjugates and relatives which do not exist. Hence the fiction that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles, spirals and dragons being (except in name) utterly rejected.
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Cosmus, Duke of Florence, was wont to say of perfidious friends, that 'We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.'
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The light that a man receives by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which comes from his own understanding and judgment, which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs.
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Time is the greatest innovator.
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A bachelor's life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.
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God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.
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If you want to convey fact, this can only ever be done through a form of distortion. You must distort to transform what is called appearance into image.
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I feel that I am much freer if I'm on my own, but I'm sure that there are a lot of painters who would perhaps be even more inventive if they had people round them... I find that if I am on my own I can allow the paint to dictate to me. So the images that I'm putting down on the canvas dictate the thing to me and it gradually builds up and comes along.
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It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.