Francis Bacon Quotes
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Rather to excite your judgment briefly than to inform it tediously.
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Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.
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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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In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.
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We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.
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Never any knowledge was delivered in the same order it was invented.
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There is superstition in avoiding superstition.
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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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To know truly is to know by causes.
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For no man can forbid the spark nor tell whence it may come.
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Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
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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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If I might control the literature of the household, I would guarantee the well-being of Church and State.
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Nothing opens the heart like a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes...and whatever lies upon the heart.
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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?
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Always let losers have their words.
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When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him.
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Mysteries are due to secrecy.
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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.
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Praise from the common people is generally false, and rather follows the vain than the virtuous.
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A bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint.
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People prefer to believe what they want to be true.
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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.
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The nature of things betrays itself more readily under the vexations of art than in its natural freedom.