Top 669 Quotes & Sayings by Francis Bacon - Page 3

Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.

The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small 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.

Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.

The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.

Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.

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

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.

They that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

The correlative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors.

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness, as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns: children, women, old folks, sick folks.

Ipsa scientia potestas est. (Knowledge itself is power.)

People prefer to believe what they want to be true.

We rise to great heights by a winding staircase of small steps.

Let the mind be enlarged... to the grandeur of the mysteries, and not the mysteries contracted to the narrowness of the mind

Wonder is the seed of knowledge

It's not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong; not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich; not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned; and not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity.

Truth comes out of error more readily than out of confusion.

The lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes the wrong one.

Believe not much them that seem to despise riches, for they despise them that despair of them.

Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.

We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.

A bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint.

Do not wonder if the common people speak more truly than those above them: they speak more safely.

He of whom many are afraid ought himself to fear many.

It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself.

Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled: Mahomet called the hill to come to him again and again; and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, 'If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.'

The wonder of a single snowflake outweighs the wisdom of a million meteorologists.

Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.

All colours will agree in the dark.

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand - and melting like a snowflake.

No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.

Some men covet knowledge out of a natural curiosity and inquisitive temper; some to entertain the mind with variety and delight; some for ornament and reputation; some for victory and contention; many for lucre and a livelihood; and but few for employing the Divine gift of reason to the use and benefit of mankind.

To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none.

I usually accept bribes from both sides so that tainted money can never influence my decision.

Money is a great servant but a bad master.

Nothing opens the heart like a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes...and whatever lies upon the heart.

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

You cannot teach a child to take care of himself unless you will let him try to take care of himself. He will make mistakes and out of these mistakes will come his wisdom.

The universe must not be narrowed down to the limit of our understanding, but our understanding must be stretched and enlarged to take in the image of the universe as it is discovered.

They who derive their worth from their ancestors resemble potatoes, the most valuable part of which is underground.

Money is a good servant, a dangerous master.

A little science estranges a man from God; a lot of science brings him back.

Truth can never be reached by just listening to the voice of an authority.

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.

The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.

If money be not thy 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.

By far the best proof is experience.

Why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me?

In one and the same fire, clay grows hard and wax melts.

God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation.

It's not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity.

If we are to achieve things never before accomplished we must employ methods never before attempted

Always let losers have their words.