Francis Bacon Quotes
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... wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity.
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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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Without friends the world is but a wilderness.
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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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The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies than in any constant belief.
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If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
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It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active.
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A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it.
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Sacred and inspired divinity, the sabaoth and port of all men's labours and peregrinations.
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Man seeketh in society comfort, use and protection.
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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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Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards new men when they rise. For the distance is altered, and it is like a deceit of the eye, that when others come on they think themselves go back.
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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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Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.
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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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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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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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For the inquisition of Final Causes is barren, and like a virgin consecrated to God produces nothing.
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The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are.
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Be true to thyself, as thou be not false to others.
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When I paint I am ageless, I just have the pleasure or the difficulty of painting.
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Glorious men are the scorn of wise men, the admiration of fools, the idols of parasites, and the slaves of their own vaunts.
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Chiefly the mold of a man's fortune is in his own hands.
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The noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men, which have sought to express the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed.