Francis Bacon Quotes
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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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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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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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Boldness is a child of ignorance.
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Vices of the time; vices of the man.
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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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The greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel.
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I would like, in my arbitrary way, to bring one nearer to the actual human being.
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There was never miracle wrought by God to convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a God.
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Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.
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By indignities men come to dignities.
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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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To say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men.
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Great art is always a way of concentrating, reinventing what is called fact, what we know of our existence- a reconcentration… tearing away the veils, the attitudes people acquire of their time and earlier time. Really good artists tear down those veils.
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I could not be true and constant to the argument I handle, if I were not willing to go beyond others; but yet not more willing than to have others go beyond me again: which may the better appear by this, that I have propounded my opinions naked and unarmed, not seeking to preoccupate the liberty of men's judgments by confutations.
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Images also help me find and realise ideas. I look at hundreds of very different, contrasting images and I pinch details from them, rather like people who eat from other people`s plates.
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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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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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In nature things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place.
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No artist knows in his own lifetime whether what he does will be the slightest good, because it takes at least seventy-five to a hundred years before the thing begins to sort itself out.
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The best preservative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend.
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Laws and Institutions Must Go Hand in Hand with the Progress of the Human Mind.
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There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little.
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I want a very ordered image, but I want it to come about by chance.