Francis Bacon Quotes
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Journeys at youth are part of the education; but at maturity, are part of the experience.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.
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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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A just fear of an imminent danger, though be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war.
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Men suppose their reason has command over their words; still it happens that words in return exercise authority on reason.
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Truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not shew the masks and mummeries and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelights.
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Nothing is terrible except fear itself.
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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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Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.
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The less people speak of their greatness, the more we think of it.
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Judges ought to remember, that their office is jus dicere, and not jus dare; to interpret law, and not to make law, or give law.
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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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The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.
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[Science is] the labor and handicraft of the mind.
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Intermingle...jest with earnest.
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Another error is an impatience of doubt and haste to assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment. For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients; the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation; if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
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One of the fathers saith . . . that old men go to death, and death comes to young men.