Francis Bacon Quotes
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Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to know which he doth not.
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Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.
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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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I've had photographs taken for portraits because I very much prefer working from the photographs than from models... I couldn't attempt to do a portrait from photographs of somebody I didn't know.
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Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
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Praise is the reflection of virtue.
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Aristotle… a mere bond-servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious and well nigh useless.
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Revenge is a kind of wild justice.
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Painting is the pattern of one's own nervous system being projected on canvas.
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One of the fathers saith . . . that old men go to death, and death comes to young men.
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[Science is] the labor and handicraft of the mind.
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Nothing is terrible except fear itself.
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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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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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The voice of the people has about it something divine: for how otherwise can so many heads agree together as one?
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One of the Seven [wise men of Greece] was wont to say: That laws were like cobwebs, where the small flies are caught and the great break through.
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It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself.
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The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.
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As you work, the mood grows on you. There are certain images which suddenly get hold of me and I really want to do them. But it's true to say that the excitement and possibilities are in the working and obviously can only come in the working.
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Believe not much them that seem to despise riches, for they despise them that despair of them.
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Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.
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He that commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.
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It hath been an opinion that the French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are; but howsoever it be between nations, certainly it is so between man and man.