Top 669 Quotes & Sayings by Francis Bacon - Page 9

He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith.

I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him. If I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.

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.

Disciples do owe their masters only a temporary belief, and a suspension of their own judgment till they be fully instructed.

Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

He who desires solitude is either an animal or a god.

The only hope [of science] ... is in genuine induction.

I would live to study, not study to live.

For knowledge, too, is itself power.

When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him.

Ask counsel of both timesof the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.

The errors of young men are the ruin of business, but the errors of aged men amount to this, that more might have been done, or sooner.

Consistency is the foundation of virtue.

What, then, remains but that we still should cry, For being born, and, being born, to die?

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

If I might control the literature of the household, I would guarantee the well-being of Church and State.

I paint for myself. I don't know how to do anything else, anyway. Also I have to earn my living, and occupy myself.

For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocence, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.

For friends... do but look upon good Books: they are true friends, that will neither flatter nor dissemble.

The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies.

Perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures.

It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active.

But by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this-that men despair and think things impossible.

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest

Art is man added to Nature.

Secrecy in suits goes a great way towards success.

I regret not starting to paint earlier...It is one of the few things I do regret.

In Philosophy, the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto God, or are circumferred to Nature, or are reflected and reverted upon himself. Out of which several inquiries there do arise three knowledges, Divine Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, and Human Philosophy or Humanity. For all things are marked and stamped with this triple character of the power of God, the difference of Nature and the use of Man.

Men seem neither to understand their riches nor their strength. Of the former they believe greater things than they should; of the latter, less.

Painting is a duality and abstract painting is an entirely aesthetic thing. It always remains on one level. It is only really interesting in the beauty of its patterns or its shapes.

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.

Man seeketh in society comfort, use and protection.

Those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts.

To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affection; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar.

Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.

The breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air than in the hand.

Salomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion.

Virtue is like precious odours,-most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.

The divisions of science are not like different lines that meet in one angle, but rather like the branches of trees that join in one trunk.

Of all things known to mortals, wine is the most powerful and effectual for exciting and inflaming the passions of mankind, being common fuel to them all.

The sun, though it passes through dirty places, yet remains as pure as before.

Some paint comes across directly onto the nervous system and other paint tells you the story in a long diatribe through the brain.

The human understanding, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater degree of order and equality in things than it really finds.

Nuptial love makes mankind; friendly love perfects it; but wanton love corrupts and debases it.

If you can talk about it, why paint it?

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.

That which above all other yields the sweetest smell in the air is the violet.

The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond... But he is no less an unskilled and shallow philosopher who seeks causes of that which is most general, than he who in things subordinate and subaltern omits to do so

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.

I loathe my own face, and I've done self-portraits because I've had nobody else to do.

Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that, if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?

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

Gardening is the purest of human pleasures.

It is idle to expect any great advancement in science from the superinducing and engrafting of new things upon old. We must begin anew from the very foundations, unless we would revolve for ever in a circle with mean and contemptible progress.

It is rightly laid down that 'true knowledge is knowledge by causes'. Also the establishment of four causes is not bad: material, formal, efficient and final.

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

Of all the things in nature, the formation and endowment of man was singled out by the ancients.

It was a high speech of Seneca that "The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired."

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.

There is a cunning which we in England call the rning of the cat in the pan.