Francis Bacon Quotes
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Let the mind be enlarged... to the grandeur of the mysteries, and not the mysteries contracted to the narrowness of the mind.
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Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.
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The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.
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Dreams, and predictions of astrology....ought to serve but for winter talk by the fireside.
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Cleanness of body was ever deemed to proceed from a due reverence to God.
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No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common notions, and to apply the understanding, thus made fair and even, to a fresh examination of particulars. Thus it happens that human knowledge, as we have it, is a mere medley and ill-digested mass, made up of much credulity and much accident, and also of the childish notions which we at first imbibed.
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Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.
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For cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves.
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I don't believe art is available; it's rare and curious and should be completely isolated; one is more aware of its magic the more it is isolated.
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Suspicion amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they never fly by twilight.
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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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Truth is a naked and open daylight.
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A forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread it out.
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There is superstition in avoiding superstition.
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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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Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
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A picture should be a re-creation of an event rather than an illustration of an object; but there is no tension in the picture unless there is a struggle with the object.
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A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.
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The doctrines of religion are resolved into carefulness; carefulness into vigorousness; vigorousness into guiltlessness; guiltlessness into abstemiousness; abstemiousness into cleanliness; cleanliness into godliness.
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Great Hypocrites are the real atheists.
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Money is a great servant but a bad master.
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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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There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise.