Francis Bacon Quotes
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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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He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.
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It is madness and a contradiction to expect that things which were never yet performed should be effected, except by means hitherto untried.
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Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.
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The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding.
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He that cannot possibly mend his own case will do what he can to impair another's.
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Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.
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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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Men in great place are thrice servants,-servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business.
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It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that 'The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.'
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Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
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They who derive their worth from their ancestors resemble potatoes, the most valuable part of which is underground.
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Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.
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Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.
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For no man can forbid the spark nor tell whence it may come.
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The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond... But he is no less an unskilled and shallow philosopher who seeks causes of that which is most general, than he who in things subordinate and subaltern omits to do so.
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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.
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We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.
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Men ought to find the difference between saltiness and bitterness. Certainly, he that hath a satirical vein, as he maketh others afraid of his wit, so he had need be afraid of others' memory.
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Rather to excite your judgment briefly than to inform it tediously.
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It is by discourse that men associate, and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obsesses the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into innumerable and inane controversies and fancies.
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Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that, if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?