Famous Quotes By Francis Bacon

 

1. A bachelor's life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.
2. A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
3. A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.
4. A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
5. Acorns were good until bread was found.
6. Age appears to be best in four things old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
7. Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.
8. Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.
9. Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.
10. But men must know, that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.
11. By indignities men come to dignities.
12. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.
13. Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse.
14. Friends are thieves of time.
15. Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.
16. God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.
17. God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.
18. God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.
19. God's first creature, which was light.
20. He that gives good advice, builds with one hand he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.
21. He that hath knowledge spareth his words.
22. He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
23. He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils for time is the greatest innovator.
24. Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
25. I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
26. I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.
27. If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.
28. Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not a sense of humor to console him for what he is.
29. It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.
30. It is impossible to love and to be wise.
31. Knowledge and human power are synonymous.
32. Knowledge is power.
33. Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.
34. Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.
35. Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.
36. Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread.
37. Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.
38. Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.
39. Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
40. Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.
41. Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
42. People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.
43. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes adversity not without many comforts and hopes.
44. Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
45. Science is but an image of the truth.
46. Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.
47. Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.
48. Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.
49. The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.
50. The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.
51. The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
52. The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.
53. The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.
54. The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.
55. The worst men often give the best advice.
56. There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.
57. 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.
58. There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
59. They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
60. Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.
61. Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education in the elder, a part of experience.
62. Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
63. 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.
64. Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.
65. Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
66. Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
67. We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.
68. What is truth? said jesting Pilate and would not stay for an answer.
69. When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative.
70. Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.
71. Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
72. Wise men make more opportunities than they find.
73. Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.
74. Young people are fitter to invent than to judge fitter for execution than for counsel and more fit for new projects than for settled business.