Francis Bacon Quotes
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A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it.
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There is another ground of hope that must not be omitted. Let men but think over their infinite expenditure of understanding, time, and means on matters and pursuits of far less use and value; whereof, if but a small part were directed to sound and solid studies, there is no difficulty that might not be overcome.
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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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To seek to extinguish anger utterly, is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: Be angry, but sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Anger must be limited and confined, both in race and in time.
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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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Knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, and therefore where it entereth into a man it makes him swell.
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But we are not dedicating or building any Capitol or Pyramid to human Pride, but found a holy temple in the human Intellect, on the model of the Universe... For whatever is worthy of Existence is worthy of Knowledge-which is the Image (or Echo) of Existence.
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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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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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Because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical.
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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.
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Intermingle...jest with earnest.
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It is rightly laid down that 'true knowledge is knowledge by causes'. Also the establishment of four causes is not bad: material, formal, efficient and final.
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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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Affected dispatch is one of the most dangerous things to business that can be. It is like that, which the physicians call predigestion, or hasty digestion; which is sure to fill the body full of crudities, and secret seeds of diseases. Therefore measure not dispatch, by the times of sitting, but by the advancement of the business.
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Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.
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I would like my pictures to look as if a human being had passed between them, like a snail, leaving a trail of the human presence and memory trace of past events, as the snail leaves its slime.
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It is yet a higher speech of his than the other, 'It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.'
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Nothing is terrible except fear itself.
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It was a high speech of Seneca that "The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired."
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For first of all we must prepare a Natural and Experimental History, sufficient and good; and this is the foundation of all; for we are not to imagine or suppose, but to discover, what nature does or may be made to do.
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Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.
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Parents who wish to train up their children in the way they should go must go in the way in which they would have their children go.
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The lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes the wrong one.