Francis Bacon Quotes
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Great art is always a way of concentrating, reinventing what is called fact, what we know of our existence- a reconcentration… tearing away the veils, the attitudes people acquire of their time and earlier time. Really good artists tear down those veils.
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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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Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.
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We think according to nature. We speak according to rules. We act according to custom.
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Before I start painting I have a slightly ambiguous feeling: happiness is a special excitement because unhappiness is always possible a moment later.
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The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all as things now are with slight endeavour and scanty success.
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Without friends the world is but a wilderness.
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For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself.
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When I paint I am ageless, I just have the pleasure or the difficulty of painting.
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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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... wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity.
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The worst solitute is to be destitute of true friendship.
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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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But this is that which will dignify and exalt knowledge: if contemplation and action be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than they have been: a conjunction like unto that of the highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action.
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He who desires solitude is either an animal or a god.
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In mathematics I can report no deficiency, except it be that men do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of Pure Mathematics.
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Gardening is the purest of human pleasures.
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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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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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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.
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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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The best preservative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend.
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Be true to thyself, as thou be not false to others.
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A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it.