Francis Bacon Quotes
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Rather to excite your judgment briefly than to inform it tediously.
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The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.
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Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.
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They that reverence to much old times are but a scorn to the new.
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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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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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Nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn.
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For no man can forbid the spark nor tell whence it may come.
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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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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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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.
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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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Books will speak plain when counselors blanch.
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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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The bee enclosed and through the amber shown Seems buried in the juice which was his own.
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Always let losers have their words.
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Why should a man be in love with his fetters, though of gold?
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Rebellions of the belly are the worst.
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The world's a bubble, and the life of man Less than a span.
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It cannot be denied that outward accidents conduce much to fortune, favor, opportunity, death of others, occasion fitting virtue; but chiefly, the mold of a man's fortune is in his own hands.