Francis Bacon Quotes
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When I paint I am ageless, I just have the pleasure or the difficulty of painting.
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The less people speak of their greatness, the more we think of it.
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Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
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Ask counsel of both timesof the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.
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In charity there is no excess.
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Beware of sudden change, in any great point of diet, and, if necessity inforce it, fit the rest to it. For it is a secret both in nature and state, that it is safer to change many things, than one.
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Sacred and inspired divinity, the sabaoth and port of all men's labours and peregrinations.
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When Christ came into the world, peace was sung; and when He went out of the world, peace was bequeathed.
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He that cometh to seek after knowledge, with a mind to scorn, shall be sure to find matter for his humour, but no matter for his instruction.
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The great atheists, indeed are hypocrites; which are ever handling holy things, but without feeling; so as they must needs be cauterized in the end.
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Very few people have a natural feeling for painting, and so, of course, they naturally think that painting is an expression of the artist's mood. But it rarely is. Very often he may be in greatest despair and be painting his happiest paintings.
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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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By indignities men come to dignities.
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The errors of young men are the ruin of business, but the errors of aged men amount to this, that more might have been done, or sooner.
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Sir Henry Wotton used to say that critics are like brushers of noblemen's clothes.
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You shall have atheists strive to get disciples, as it fareth with other sects. And, which is most of all, you shall have of them, that will suffer for atheism, and not recant; whereas if they did truly think, that there were no such thing as God, why should they trouble themselves?
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Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
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Sir Amice Pawlet, when he saw too much haste made in any matter, was wont to say. 'Stay a while, that we may make an end the sooner.'
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O life! An age to the miserable, a moment to the happy.
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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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Praise is the reflection of virtue.
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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 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 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.