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It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.
Francis Bacon -
Praise from the common people is generally false, and rather follows the vain than the virtuous.
Francis Bacon
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Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.
Francis Bacon -
I don't think people are born artists; I think it comes from a mixture of your surroundings, the people you meet, and luck.
Francis Bacon -
Nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn.
Francis Bacon -
Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.
Francis Bacon -
Mysteries are due to secrecy.
Francis Bacon -
Never any knowledge was delivered in the same order it was invented.
Francis Bacon
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Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.
Francis Bacon -
They that reverence to much old times are but a scorn to the new.
Francis Bacon -
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.
Francis Bacon -
Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.
Francis Bacon -
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.
Francis Bacon -
To spend too much time in studies is sloth.
Francis Bacon
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When a doubt is once received, men labour rather how to keep it a doubt still, than how to solve it; and accordingly bend their wits.
Francis Bacon -
Philosophers make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high.
Francis Bacon -
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.
Francis Bacon -
The cord breaketh at last by the weakest pull.
Francis Bacon -
It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.
Francis Bacon -
Always let losers have their words.
Francis Bacon
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The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.
Francis Bacon -
The human understanding, when any preposition has been once laid down... forces everything else to add fresh support and confirmation; and although more cogent and abundant instances may exist to the contrary, yet it either does not observe them or it despises them, or it gets rid of and rejects them by some distinction, with violent and injurious prejudice, rather than sacrifice the authority of its first conclusions.
Francis Bacon -
Truth can never be reached by just listening to the voice of an authority.
Francis Bacon -
Upon a given body to generate and superinduce a new nature or new natures is the work and aim of human power. To discover the Form of a given nature, or its true difference, or its causal nature, or fount of its emanation... this is the work and aim of human knowledge.
Francis Bacon