Francis Bacon Quotes
-
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.
-
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted... but to weigh and consider.
-
Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.
-
Books will speak plain when counselors blanch.
-
Art is man added to Nature.
-
It is natural to die as to be born.
-
A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.
-
Princes are like heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration but no rest.
-
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.
-
There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise.
-
The human understanding of its own nature is prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds.
-
The human understanding, when any preposition has been once laid down... forces everything else to add fresh support and confirmation; and although more cogent and abundant instances may exist to the contrary, yet it either does not observe them or it despises them, or it gets rid of and rejects them by some distinction, with violent and injurious prejudice, rather than sacrifice the authority of its first conclusions.
-
Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.
-
It is a great happiness when men's professions and their inclinations accord.
-
People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.
-
Money is a great servant but a bad master.
-
Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.
-
A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.
-
The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.
-
To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none.
-
He that hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.
-
God's first creature, which was light.
-
Let the mind be enlarged... to the grandeur of the mysteries, and not the mysteries contracted to the narrowness of the mind.
-
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.