Francis Bacon Quotes
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If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.
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Sir Henry Wotton used to say that critics are like brushers of noblemen's clothes.
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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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The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.
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Take an arrow, and hold it in flame for the space of ten pulses, and when it cometh forth you shall find those parts of the arrow which were on the outsides of the flame more burned, blacked, and turned almost to coal, whereas the midst of the flame will be as if the fire had scarce touched it. This is an instance of great consequence for the discovery of the nature of flame; and sheweth manifestly, that flame burneth more violently towards the sides than in the midst.
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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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Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest.
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By far the best proof is experience.
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Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.
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The first question concerning the Celestial Bodies is whether there be a system, that is whether the world or universe compose together one globe, with a center, or whether the particular globes of earth and stars be scattered dispersedly, each on its own roots, without any system or common center.
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There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little.
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Whatever you can, count.
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I want a very ordered image, but I want it to come about by chance.
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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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Man seeketh in society comfort, use and protection.
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Anger is certainly a kind of baseness; as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns; children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware, that they carry their anger rather with scorn, than with fear; so that they may seem rather to be above the injury, than below it; which is a thing easily done, if a man will give law to himself in it.
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The wonder of a single snowflake outweighs the wisdom of a million meteorologists.
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In nature things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place.
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If a man's wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores, splitters of hairs.
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If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master.
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For the chain of causes cannot by any force be loosed or broken, nor can nature be commanded except by being obeyed.
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You cannot teach a child to take care of himself unless you will let him try to take care of himself. He will make mistakes and out of these mistakes will come his wisdom.
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Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.
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The eye of understanding is like the eye of the sense; for as you may see great objects through small crannies or levels, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances.