Francis Bacon Quotations | Page 3

What is it then to have or have no wife, / But single thraldom, or a double strife?

We cannot too often think there is a never sleeping eye, which reads the heart, and registers our thoughts

As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.

Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.

Custom is the principal magistrate of man's life.

Argumentation cannot suffice for the discovery of new work, since the subtlety of Nature is greater many times than the subtlety of argument.

The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship.

The way of fortune is like the milky way in the sky; which is a number of smaller stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together; so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate

The wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

The surest way to prevent seditions (if the times do bear it) is to take away the matter of them.

The sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before.

The speaking in perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but love

Seek not proud wealth; but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and love contentedly

Sacred and inspired divinity, the sabaoth and port of all men's labours and peregrinations.

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.

Prosperity is not without many fears and distaste; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.

Prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, but to weigh and consider . . . Histories make men wise.

Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration but no rest.

Of great riches there is no real use, except in the distribution; the rest is but conceit

Age appears best in four things: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

The mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.

A crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures

Study After Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X,

Some books are to be tasted; others swallowed; and some to be chewed and digested.

Decided cases are the anchors of the law, as laws are of the state

As in nature, things move violently to their place and calmly in their place, so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority settled and calm.

Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects than for settled business.

This delivering of knowledge in distinct and disjointed aphorisms doth leave the wit of man more free to turn and toss, and to make use of that which is so delivered to more several purposes and applications

They that deny a God destroy man's nobility, for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he is not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature

A man cannot speak to his son but as a father, to his wife but as a husband, to his enemy but upon terms; whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person.

A man's nature runs either to herbs, or to weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other.

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well

Atheism is rather in the life than in the heart of man

Ask a counsel of both times-of the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest

A sudden, bold, and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open

It is scarcely possible at once to admire and excel an author, as water rises no higher than the reservoir it falls from

The noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men.

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.

The best preservative to keep the mind on health is the faithful admonition of a friend.

No man is angry that feels not himself hurt

It was prettily devised of Aesop, ""The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said, what dust do I raise!

It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of him.

The world 's a bubble, and the life of man less than a span.

The zeal which begins with hypocrisy must conclude in treachery; at first it deceives, at last it betrays

The lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes a wrong one. Nay, it is obvious that the more active and swift the latter is the further he will go astray.

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears: they cannot utter the one, nor will they utter the other

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears.

In counsel it is good to see dangers; but in execution not to see them unless they be very great

In contemplation, if a man begins with certainties he shall end in doubts; but if he be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

In civil business; what first? Boldness; what second, and third? Boldness. And yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness.

If money be not they servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.

If we begin with certainties, we will end in doubt. But if we begin with doubts and bear them patiently, we may end in certainty.

If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin with doubts, and are patient in them, we shall end in certainties.

In thinking, if a person begins with certainties, they shall end in doubts, but if they can begin with doubts, they will end in certainties.

In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow the name of the world; as to say, ""The world says,"" or ""There is a speech abroad.

In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior

I have taken all knowledge to be my province

It hath been an opinion that the French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are; but howsoever it be between nations, certainly it is so between man and man

Cleanness of body was ever deemed to proceed from a due reverence to God.

Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper.

Houses are built to live in, not to look on; therefore, let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had

Houses are built to live in and not to look on.

Champagne for my sham friends; real pain for my real friends.

He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.

For none deny there is a God, but those for whom it maketh that there were no God.

For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and to the next ages.

Generally he perceived in men of devout simplicity this opinion: that the secrets of nature were the secrets of God, part of that glory into which man is not to press too boldly.

The natures and dispositions of men are, not without truth, distinguished from the predominance of the planets.

Crafty men condemn studies; Simple men admire them; And wise men use them: For they teach not their own use: but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation.

I think that one of the things is that, if you are going to decide to be a painter, you have got to decide that you are not going to be afraid of making a fool of yourself. I think another thing is to be able to find subjects which really absorb you to try and do. I feel that without a subject you automatically go back into decoration because you haven't got the subject which is always eating into you to bring it back - and the greatest art always returns you to the vulnerability of the human situation.

Nothing is to be feared but fear itself. Nothing grievous but to yield to grief.

I use all sorts of things to work with: old brooms, old sweaters, and all kinds of peculiar tools and materials... I paint to excite myself, and make something for myself.

Envy is ever joined with the comparing of a man's self; and where there is no comparison, no envy.

It is good discretion not make too much of any man at the first; because one cannot hold out that proportion.

There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise.

The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man.

All artists are vain, they long to be recognized and to leave something to posterity. They want to be loved, and at the same time they want to be free. But nobody is free.

Even within the most beautiful landscape, in the trees, under the leaves the insects are eating each other; violence is a part of life.

For behavior, men learn it, as they take diseases, one of another.

The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all as things now are with slight endeavour and scanty success.

Innovations, which are the births of time.

A man were better relate himself to a statue or picture than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother.

If a man's wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores, splitters of hairs.

There is another ground of hope that must not be omitted. Let men but think over their infinite expenditure of understanding, time, and means on matters and pursuits of far less use and value; whereof, if but a small part were directed to sound and solid studies, there is no difficulty that might not be overcome.

Mysteries are due to secrecy.

He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry? 'A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.'

When a bee stings, she dies. She cannot sting and live. When men sting, their better selves die. Every sting kills a better instinct. Men must not turn bees and kill themselves in stinging others.

I knew a wise man that had it for a by-word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, "Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner."

Men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts.

One of the fathers saith . . . that old men go to death, and death comes to young men.

Nor is mine a trumpet which summons and excites men to cut each other to pieces with mutual contradictions, or to quarrel and fight with one another; but rather to make peace between themselves, and turning with united forces against the Nature of Things

When any of the four pillars of government-religion, justice, counsel, and treasure-are mainly shaken or weakened, men had need to pray for fair weather.

The noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men, which have sought to express the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed.

Look to make your course regular, that men may know beforehand what they may expect.

I have often thought upon death, and I find it the least of all evils.

They are the best physicians, who being great in learning most incline to the traditions of experience, or being distinguished in practice do not reflect the methods and generalities of art.

There arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind.

For knowledge, too, is itself power.