English philosopher (1561-1626)
Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
There is in man's nature a secret inclination and motion towards love of others, which, if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable, as it is seen sometimes in friars. Nuptial love maketh mankind, friendly love perfecteth it, but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins them.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature; and ... mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but embaseth it.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over he is superior.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
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
Libraries ... are as the shrines where all the relics of ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays Or Counsels
Knowledge is power.
FRANCIS BACON
Meditationes Sacrae
It is not possible to run a course aright when the goal itself has not been rightly placed.
FRANCIS BACON
Novum Organum
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
We cannot command nature except by obeying her.
FRANCIS BACON
Novum Organum
The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded.
FRANCIS BACON
Novum Organum
The real and legitimate goal of the sciences is the endowment of human life with new commodities.
FRANCIS BACON
Novum Organum
The cord breaketh at last by the weakest pull.
FRANCIS BACON
On Seditions
Seek first the virtues of the mind; and other things either will come, or will not be wanted.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
States as great engines move slowly.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
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