Francis Bacon Quotes
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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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He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
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Truth ... is the sovereign good of human nature.
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Like strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones.
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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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The nature of things betrays itself more readily under the vexations of art than in its natural freedom.
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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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Truth can never be reached by just listening to the voice of an authority.
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A cat will never drown if she sees the shore.
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Love and envy make a man pine, which other affections do not, because they are not so continual.
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If I sit and daydream, the images rush by like a succession of colored slides.
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In things that are tender and unpleasing, it is good to break the ice by some one whose words are of less weight, and to reserve the more weighty voice to come in as by chance.
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To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none.
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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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Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.
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But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men.
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He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay of a whole age.
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All bravery stands upon comparisons.
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Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.
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It would be unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.
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It was prettily devised of Aesop, The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said, what dust do I raise!
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But men must know, that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.
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Suspicion amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they never fly by twilight.
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He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.