Francis Bacon Quotes
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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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When a doubt is once received, men labour rather how to keep it a doubt still, than how to solve it; and accordingly bend their wits.
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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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Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
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Dreams, and predictions of astrology....ought to serve but for winter talk by the fireside.
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The great atheists, indeed are hypocrites; which are ever handling holy things, but without feeling; so as they must needs be cauterized in the end.
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A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
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The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude.
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Money is like muck, not good unless spread.
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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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Hope is the most beneficial of all the affections, and doth much to the prolongation of life.
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The Syllogism consists of propositions, propositions consist of words, words are symbols of notions. Therefore if the notions themselves (which is the root of the matter) are confused and over-hastily abstracted from the facts, there can be no firmness in the superstructure. Our only hope therefore lies in a true induction.
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There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious.
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Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second. For there is a youth in thoughts, as well as in ages. And yet the invention of young men, is more lively than that of old; and imaginations stream into their minds better, and, as it were, more divinely.
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Great Hypocrites are the real atheists.
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There is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death . . . Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it.
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Observation and experiment for gathering material, induction and deduction for elaborating it: these are are only good intellectual tools.
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…it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives…
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The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.
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Moreover, the works already known are due to chance and experiment rather than to sciences; for the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented; not methods of invention or directions for new works.
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Seeming wise men may make shift to get opinion; but let no man choose them for employment; for certainly you were better take for business, a man somewhat absurd, than over-formal.
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Great boldness is seldom without some absurdity.
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In one and the same fire, clay grows hard and wax melts.
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Envy is ever joined with the comparing of a man's self; and where there is no comparison, no envy.