Francis Bacon Quotes
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The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded.
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A lie faces God and shrinks from man.
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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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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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A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others. For men's minds, will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one, will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope, to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by depressing another's fortune.
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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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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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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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Knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, and therefore where it entereth into a man it makes him swell.
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Sir Henry Wotton used to say that critics are like brushers of noblemen's clothes.
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No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
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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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An illustrational form tells you through the intelligence immediately what the form is about, whereas a non-illustrational form works first upon sensation and then slowly leaks back into the fact.
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The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.
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Boldness is a child of ignorance.
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I've had photographs taken for portraits because I very much prefer working from the photographs than from models... I couldn't attempt to do a portrait from photographs of somebody I didn't know.
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If vices were profitable, the virtuous man would be the sinner.
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That which above all other yields the sweetest smell in the air is the violet.
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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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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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If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.
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The sun, though it passes through dirty places, yet remains as pure as before.
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Lucid intervals and happy pauses.