Francis Bacon Quotes
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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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The correlative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors.
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Excusations, cessions, modesty itself well governed, are but arts of ostentation.
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States as great engines move slowly.
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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 we are to achieve things never before accomplished we must employ methods never before attempted.
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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 nothing won to admit men with an open door, and to receive them with a shut and reserved countenance.
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Virtue is like precious odours,-most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.
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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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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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The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three. First to lay asleep opposition and to surprise. For where a man's intentions are published, it is an alarum to call up all that are against them. The second is to reserve a man's self a fair retreat: for if a man engage himself, by a manifest declaration, he must go through, or take a fall. The third is, the better to discover the mind of another. For to him that opens himself, men will hardly show themselves adverse; but will fair let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to freedom of thought.
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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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Atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man.
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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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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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In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.
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Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.
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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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To spend too much time in studies is sloth.
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Cato said the best way to keep good acts in memory was to refresh them with new.
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I feel ever so strongly that an artist must be nourished by his passions and his despairs. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him. The feelings of desperation and unhappiness are more useful to an artist than the feeling of contentment, because desperation and unhappiness stretch your whole sensibility.
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I don't think people are born artists; I think it comes from a mixture of your surroundings, the people you meet, and luck.