Francis Bacon Quotes
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The true bounds and limitations, whereby human knowledge is confined and circumscribed,... are three: the first, that we do not so place our felicity in knowledge, as we forget our mortality: the second, that we make application of our knowledge, to give ourselves repose and contentment, and not distates or repining: the third, that we do not presume by the contemplation of Nature to attain to the mysteries of God.
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Friendship maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts.
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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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Deformed persons commonly take revenge on nature.
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To be free minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one of the best precepts of long lasting.
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The colors that show best by candlelight are white, carnation, and a kind of sea-water green.
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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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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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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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There is a cunning which we in England call 'the turning of the cat in the pan;' which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him.
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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 friends... do but look upon good Books: they are true friends, that will neither flatter nor dissemble.
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But the best demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual experiment.
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Nothing is to be feared but fear.
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The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this - that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.
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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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The lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes the wrong one.
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Judges ought above all to remember the conclusion of the Roman Twelve Tables :The supreme law of all is the weal [weatlh/ well-being] of the people.
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All of our actions take their hue from the complexion of the heart, as landscapes their variety from light.
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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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It is not possible to run a course aright when the goal itself has not been rightly placed.
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For behavior, men learn it, as they take diseases, one of another.
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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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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.