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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.
Francis Bacon -
I hold every man a debtor to his profession; from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto.
Francis Bacon
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He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.
Francis Bacon -
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.
Francis Bacon -
It is true that may hold in these things, which is the general root of superstition; namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.
Francis Bacon -
…it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives…
Francis Bacon -
A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.
Francis Bacon -
Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible.
Francis Bacon
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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.
Francis Bacon -
Dreams, and predictions of astrology....ought to serve but for winter talk by the fireside.
Francis Bacon -
Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles, which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and, that which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop nor turn.
Francis Bacon -
Hurl your calumnies boldly; something is sure to stick.
Francis Bacon -
It is madness and a contradiction to expect that things which were never yet performed should be effected, except by means hitherto untried.
Francis Bacon -
Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.
Francis Bacon
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I'm just trying to make images as accurately as possible off my nervous system as I can.
Francis Bacon -
Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
Francis Bacon -
Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.
Francis Bacon -
Like strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones.
Francis Bacon -
If I sit and daydream, the images rush by like a succession of colored slides.
Francis Bacon -
Love and envy make a man pine, which other affections do not, because they are not so continual.
Francis Bacon
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There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little, and therefore men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not keep their suspicions in smother.
Francis Bacon -
I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
Francis Bacon -
Seeming wise men may make shift to get opinion; but let no man choose them for employment; for certainly you were better take for business, a man somewhat absurd, than over-formal.
Francis Bacon -
Nil terribile nisi ipse timor.
Francis Bacon