Francis Bacon quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Francis Bacon on Wise Famous Quotes.

An artist must learn to be nourished by his passions and by his despairs,

There are many wise men that have secret hearts and transparent countenances.

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.

Certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.

For fountains, they are a Great Beauty and Refreshment, but Pools mar all, and make the Garden unwholesome, and full of Flies and Frogs.

Observation and experiment for gathering material, induction and deduction for elaborating it: these are are only good intellectual tools.

Nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn.

The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are.

Rebellions of the belly are the worst.

If vices were profitable, the virtuous man would be the sinner.

No man's fortune can be an end worthy of his being.

Painting gave meaning to my life which without it would not have had

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

But men must know, that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.

Why should a man be in love with his fetters, though of gold?

I'm just trying to make images as accurately as possible off my nervous system as I can.

The images of men's wit and knowledge remain in books, exempted from the worry of time and capable of perpetual renovation.

Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.

As is the garden such is the gardener. A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds.

Nothing is to be feared but fear.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

Wounds cannot be cured without searching.

Vices of the time; vices of the man.

The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.

If a man is gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows that he is a citizen of the world.

by indignities men come to dignities

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.

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.

Money is like manure, its only good if you spread it around.

There Are But Two Tragedies in Life-One is One's Inability to attain One's Heart's Desire-The Other Is To Have It!

Judges ought above all to remember the conclusion of the Roman Twelve Tables :The supreme law of all is the weal [weatlh/ well-being] of the people.

I would like, in my arbitrary way, to bring one nearer to the actual human being.

The wisdom of the ancients.

Aristotle ... a mere bond-servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious ...

In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not look to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.

All rising to a great place is by a winding stair.

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

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Art is man added to Nature.

The worst solitute is to be destitute of true friendship.

Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.

Money is like muck, not good unless spread.

It is nothing won to admit men with an open door, and to receive them with a shut and reserved countenance.

I would live to study, not study to live.

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

And as for Mixed Mathematics, I may only make this prediction, that there cannot fail to be more kinds of them, as nature grows further disclosed.

Great riches have sold more men than they have bought.

Great Hypocrites are the real atheists.

Parents who wish to train up their children in the way they should go must go in the way in which they would have their children go.

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

They are happy men whose natures sort with their vocations.

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.

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.

Nature cannot be commanded except by being obeyed.

Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.

Spouses are great impediments to great enterprises.

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

Men fear death as children fear to go into the dark and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other

Of great wealth there is no real use, except in its distribution, the rest is just conceit.

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 ought to be gardens for all months in the year, in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season.

Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.

A man dies as often as he loses his friends.

A man finds himself seven years older the day after his marriage.

Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.

Excusations, cessions, modesty itself well governed, are but arts of ostentation.

What then remains, but that we still should cry
Not to be born, or being born, to die?

In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.

People prefer to believe what they want to be true.

There is no such flatterer as is a man's self.

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

Revenge is a king of wild justice.

Acorns were good until bread was found.

For cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves.

Gardening is the purest of human pleasures.

A man that is young in years may be old in hours if he have lost no time.

Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.

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

It's such an extraordinary supple medium that you never do quite know what paint will do.

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

He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith.

Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon.

If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.

Base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark.

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

When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative.

Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.

Custom is the principle magistrate of man's life.

Many secrets of art and nature are thought by the unlearned to be magical.

Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.

If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.

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

In all superstition wise men follow fools.

Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.

It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives.

The greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel.

Liberty of speech invites and provokes liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man's knowledge.

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.