Francis Bacon Quotes
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[Science is] the labor and handicraft of the mind.
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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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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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Deformed persons commonly take revenge on nature.
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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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Intermingle...jest with earnest.
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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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One of the fathers saith . . . that old men go to death, and death comes to young men.
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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 the best demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual experiment.
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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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Doctor Johnson said, that in sickness there were three things that were material; the physician, the disease, and the patient: and if any two of these joined, then they get the victory; for, Ne Hercules quidem contra duos [Not even Hercules himself is a match for two]. If the physician and the patient join, then down goes the disease; for then the patient recovers: if the physician and the disease join, that is a strong disease; and the physician mistaking the cure, then down goes the patient: if the patient and the disease join, then down goes the physician; for he is discredited.
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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 was well said that envy keeps no holidays.
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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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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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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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All of our actions take their hue from the complexion of the heart, as landscapes their variety from light.
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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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For friends... do but look upon good Books: they are true friends, that will neither flatter nor dissemble.
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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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Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.
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Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.