FRANCIS BACON QUOTES III

English philosopher (1561-1626)

A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: virtue


The stage is more beholding to love than the life of man. For as to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief, sometimes like a Siren, sometimes like a Fury.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: love


Truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not shew the masks and mummeries and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelights.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Truth," Essays

Tags: truth


Hurl your calumnies boldly; something is sure to stick.

FRANCIS BACON

De Augmentis Scientiarum


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

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Revenge," Essays

Tags: cowardice


Do not wonder, if the common people speak more truly than those of high rank; for they speak with more safety.

FRANCIS BACON, Exempla Antithetorum

Tags: truth


Art is man added to Nature.

FRANCIS BACON

Descriptio Globi Intellectus

Tags: art


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

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Studies," Essays

Tags: books


Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Seditions and Troubles," Essays

Tags: money


The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum

Tags: opinion


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

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Delays," Essays

Tags: fortune


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

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Adversity," Essays

Tags: virtue


If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Fortune," Essays

Tags: fortune


In charity there is no excess.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature," Essays

Tags: charity


Because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning

Tags: history


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.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Youth and Age", Essays; or Counsels Civil and Moral

Tags: action


Discretion of speech, is more than eloquence.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Discourse," Essays


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

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Truth," Essays

Tags: truth


Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Studies," Essays

Tags: reading


Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced.

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum

Tags: knowledge