Francis Bacon Quotes
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I would like my pictures to look as if a human being had passed between them, like a snail, leaving a trail of the human presence and memory trace of past events, as the snail leaves its slime.
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Everybody has his own interpretation of a painting he sees.
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Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.
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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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Knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, and therefore where it entereth into a man it makes him swell.
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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 when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
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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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By indignities men come to dignities.
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Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest.
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The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.
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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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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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Reading maketh a full man.
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For knowledge, too, is itself power.
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For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocence, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.
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Every person born in the USA is endowed with life, liberty, and a substantial share of the national debt.
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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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Men are rather beholden ... generally to chance or anything else, than to logic, for the invention of arts and sciences.
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The best preservative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend.
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The wonder of a single snowflake outweighs the wisdom of a million meteorologists.
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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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Boldness is a child of ignorance.
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The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, in Apollo, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man's body and reduce it to harmony.