Francis Bacon Quotes

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Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that 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.

Francis Bacon
It is scarce possible at once to admire and excel an author, as water rises no higher than the reservoir it falls from.

Francis Bacon
A good name is like a precious ointment; it filleth all around about, and will not easily away; for the odors of ointments are more durable than those of flowers.

Francis Bacon
He that cometh to seek after knowledge with a mind to scorn and censure shall be sure to find matter for his humor, but none for his instruction.

Francis Bacon
Time is like a river, in which metals and solid substances are sunk, while chaff and straws swim upon the surface.

Francis Bacon
No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common notions, and to apply the understanding, thus made fair and even, to a fresh examination of particulars. Thus it happens that human knowledge, as we have it, is a mere medley and ill-digested mass, made up of much credulity and much accident, and also of the childish notions which we at first imbibed.

Francis Bacon
Let great authors have their due, as time, which is the author of authors, be not deprived of his due, which is, further and further to discover truth.

Francis Bacon
As we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of causes, and productions of effects: so that part which concerneth the inquiry of causes we do subdivide according to the received and sound division of causes. The one part, which is physic, inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes; and the other, which is metaphysic, handleth the formal and final causes.

Francis Bacon
Cosmus, Duke of Florence, was wont to say of perfidious friends, that "We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends."

Francis Bacon
Virtue is like precious odors — most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.

Francis Bacon
The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.

Francis Bacon
It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tosed upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage ground of truth... and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below.

Francis Bacon
I knew a wise man who had it for a by-word when he saw men hasten to a conclusion: "Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner."

Francis Bacon
Further, it will not be amiss to distinguish the three kinds and, as it were, grades of ambition in mankind. The first is of those who desire to extend their own power in their native country, a vulgar and degenerate kind. The second is of those who labor to extend the power and dominion of their country among men. This certainly has more dignity, though not less covetousness. But if a man endeavor to establish and extend the power and dominion of the human race itself over the universe, his ambition (if ambition it can be called) is without doubt both a more wholesome and a more noble thing than the other two. Now the empire of man over things depends wholly on the arts and sciences. For we cannot command nature except by obeying her.

Francis Bacon
Merit and good works is the end of man's motion, and conscience of the same is the accomplishment of man's rest.

Francis Bacon
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
Nothing is terrible except fear itself.

Francis Bacon
Generally it is good to commit the beginning of all great actions to Argus with his hundred eyes, and the end to Briareus with his hundred hands — first to watch, and then to speed.

Francis Bacon
There never was found in any age of the world, either philosopher or sect, or law or discipline, which did so highly exalt the public good as the Christian faith.

Francis Bacon
Learning hath his infancy, when it is but beginning, and almost childish; then his youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile; then his strength of years, when it is solid and reduced; and, lastly, his old age, when it waxeth dry and exhaust.

Francis Bacon
Discourse ought to be as a field, without coming home to any man.

Francis Bacon
Clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature; the mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it.

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

Francis Bacon
To choose time is to save time; and an unseasonable motion is but beating the air. There be three parts of business — the preparation, the debate or examination, and the perfection; whereof, if you look for despatch, let the middle only be the work of many, and the first and last the work of few.

Francis Bacon
Physic is of little use to a temperate person, for a man's own observation on what he finds does him good, and what hurts him is the best physic to preserve health.

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

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

Francis Bacon
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.

Francis Bacon
Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men-the master of superstition is the people; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reverse order.

Francis Bacon
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