Francis Bacon Quotes
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It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion, as is unworthy of him. For the one is unbelief, the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity.
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Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men.
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The cord breaketh at last by the weakest pull.
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Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.
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People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can't fool the neighbors.
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Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.
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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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Atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man.
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Those herbs which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but, being trodden upon and crushed, are three; that is, burnet, wild thyme and watermints. Therefore, you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread.
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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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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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I believe in deeply ordered chaos.
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Antiquitas saeculi juventus mundi. The age of antiquity is the youth of the world. These times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient ordine retrogrado, by a computation backward from ourselves.
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To spend too much time in studies is sloth.
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If I might control the literature of the household, I would guarantee the well-being of Church and State.
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We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.
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There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self.
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The zeal which begins with hypocrisy must conclude in treachery at first it deceives, at last it betrays.
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The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding.
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Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
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Primum quaerite bona animi; caetera aut aderunt, aut non oberunt
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Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible.
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God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation.
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Rather to excite your judgment briefly than to inform it tediously.