Francis Bacon Quotes
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I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends, as I have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province.
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If we are to achieve things never before accomplished we must employ methods never before attempted.
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It is nothing won to admit men with an open door, and to receive them with a shut and reserved countenance.
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The essential form of knowledge... is nothing but a representation of truth: for the truth of being and the truth of knowing are one, differing no more than the direct beam and the beam reflected.
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Riches are for spending.
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Excusations, cessions, modesty itself well governed, are but arts of ostentation.
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It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.
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The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse.
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Why should a man be in love with his fetters, though of gold?
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I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
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Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.
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Nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn.
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The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.
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To spend too much time in studies is sloth.
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But I account the use that a man should seek of the publishing of his own writings before his death, to be but an untimely anticipation of that which is proper to follow a man, and not to go along with him.
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Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.
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The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.
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It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.
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If I sit and daydream, the images rush by like a succession of colored slides.
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As is the garden such is the gardener. A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds.
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Philosophers make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high.
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Virtue is like precious odours,-most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.
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Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.
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In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.