Francis Bacon Quotes
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It is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs.
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The Idols of Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions as well of the sense as of the mind are according to the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.
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Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.
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More dangers have deceived men than forced them.
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There is no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and onsets of things.
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States as great engines move slowly.
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The correlative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors.
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Riches are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions; therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion.
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Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions.
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Believing that I was born for the service of mankind, and regarding the care of the commonwealth as a kind of common property which, like the air and the water, belongs to everybody, I set myself to consider in what way mankind might be best served, and what service I was myself best fitted by nature to perform.
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A king that would not feel his crown too heavy for him, must wear it every day; but if he think it too light, he knoweth not of what metal it is made.
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Atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man.
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Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb.
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Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly.
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Innovations, which are the births of time.
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Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.
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A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.
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There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.
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It is nothing won to admit men with an open door, and to receive them with a shut and reserved countenance.
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Hurl your calumnies boldly; something is sure to stick.
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Croesus said to Cambyses; That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons.
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Riches are for spending.
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I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
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Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.