Francis Bacon Quotes
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There is superstition in avoiding superstition.
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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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I think I tend to destroy the better paintings, or those that have been better to a certain extent. I try and take them further, and they lose all their qualities, and they lose everything. I think I would say that I destroy all the better paintings.
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The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs.
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For no man can forbid the spark nor tell whence it may come.
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Silence is the virtue of fools.
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We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.
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Much bending breaks the bow; much unbending the mind.
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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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The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.
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Praise from the common people is generally false, and rather follows the vain than the virtuous.
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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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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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Never any knowledge was delivered in the same order it was invented.
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Always let losers have their words.
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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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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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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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People prefer to believe what they want to be true.
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Books will speak plain when counselors blanch.
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A bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint.
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A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.
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The world's a bubble, and the life of man Less than a span.