Francis Bacon Quotes

563 Sourced Quotes

As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.

Francis Bacon
A man would do well to carry a pencil in his pocket, and write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable, and should be secured, because they seldom return.

Francis Bacon
The honorablest part of talk is to give the occasion, and again to moderate and pass to somewhat else; for then a man leads the dance.

Francis Bacon
In the youth of a state arms do flourish; in the middle age of a state, learning; and then both of them together for a time; in the declining age of a state, mechanical arts and merchandise.

Francis Bacon
There are four classes of Idols which beset men's minds. To these for distinction's sake I have assigned names — calling the first class, Idols of the Tribe ; the second, Idols of the Cave; the third, Idols of the Market-Place; the fourth, Idols of the Theater.

Francis Bacon
Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and aid authors to read.

Francis Bacon
Knowledge, that tendeth but to satisfaction, is but as a courtesan, which is for pleasure, and not for fruit or generation.

Francis Bacon
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

Francis Bacon
Nor do apothegms only serve for ornament and delight, but also for action and civil use: as being the edge-tools of speech, which cut and penetrate the knot of business and affairs.

Francis Bacon
Like strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones.

Francis Bacon
Were it not better for a man in a fair room to set up one great light, or branching candlestick of lights, than to go about with a rushlight into every dark corner.

Francis Bacon
Habit, if wisely and skillfully formed, becomes truly a second nature, as the common saying is; but unskillfully and unmethodically directed, it will be, as it were, the ape of Nature, which imitates nothing to the life, but only clumsily and awkwardly.

Francis Bacon
A pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.

Francis Bacon
You shall have atheists strive to get disciples, as it fareth with other sects. And, which is most of all, you shall have of them, that will suffer for atheism, and not recant; whereas if they did truly think, that there were no such thing as God, why should they trouble themselves?

Francis Bacon
A man's nature is best perceived in privateness, for there is no affectation; in passion, for that putteth a man out of his precepts; and in a new case or experiment, for there custom leaveth him.

Francis Bacon
He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry? 'A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.'

Francis Bacon
When things are come to the execution, there is no secrecy comparable to celerity.

Francis Bacon
A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others. For men's minds, will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one, will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope, to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by depressing another's fortune.

Francis Bacon
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.

Francis Bacon
Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

Francis Bacon
As those wines which flow from the first treading of the grape are sweeter and better than those forced out by the press, which gives them the roughness of the husk and stone, so are those doctrines best and sweetest which flow from a gentle crush of the scriptures, and are not wrung into controversies and commonplaces.

Francis Bacon
What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.

Francis Bacon
We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

Francis Bacon
The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.

Francis Bacon
The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse.

Francis Bacon
Self-respect is, next to religion, the chiefest bridle of all vices.

Francis Bacon
For what a man would like to be true, that he more readily believes.

Francis Bacon
For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself.

Francis Bacon
Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences; whence it is bad in council though good in execution. The right use of the bold, therefore, is, that they never command in chief, but serve as seconds under the direction of others. For in council it is good to see dangers, and in execution not to see them unless they be very great.

Francis Bacon
It is well to observe the force and virtue and consequence of discoveries, and these are to be seen nowhere more conspicuously than in those three which were unknown to the ancients, and of which the origins, though recent, are obscure and inglorious; namely, printing, gunpowder, and the mariner's needle [compass]…these three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world.

Francis Bacon