Francis Bacon Quotes

563 Sourced Quotes

For a man to love again where he is loved, it is the charity of publicans contracted by mutual profit and good offices; but to love a man's enemies is one of the cunningest points of the law of Christ, and an imitation of the divine nature.

Francis Bacon
Lastly, there are Idols which have immigrated into men's minds from the various dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call Idols of the Theater, because in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion.

Francis Bacon
He is truly well-bred who knows when to value and when to despise those national peculiarities, which are regarded by some with so much observance; a traveller of taste at once perceives that the wise are polite all the world over, but that fools are polite only at home.

Francis Bacon
He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay of a whole age.

Francis Bacon
If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again.

Francis Bacon
Since custom is the principal magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavor to obtain good customs.

Francis Bacon
The lame in the path outstrip the swift who wander from it, and it is clear that the very skill and swiftness of him who runs not in the right direction must increase his aberration.

Francis Bacon
A man were better relate himself to a statue or picture than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother.

Francis Bacon
The world hath been much abused by the opinion of making gold; the work itself I judge to be possible; but the means (hitherto propounded) to effect it are, in the practice, full of error and imposture.

Francis Bacon
Studies teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation.

Francis Bacon
Nuptial love makes mankind; friendly love perfects it; but wanton love corrupts and debases it.

Francis Bacon
The age of antiquity is the youth of the world. These times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient 'ordine retrogrado', by a computation backward from ourselves.

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

Francis Bacon
Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honour aspireth to it; grief flieth to it.

Francis Bacon
It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man; without which, buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks.

Francis Bacon
If a man look sharply, and attentively, he shall see Fortune: for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible.

Francis Bacon
Philosophy, when superficially studied, excites doubt; when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.

Francis Bacon
Hope is the most beneficial of all the affections, and doth much to the prolongation of life...

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

Francis Bacon
To conclude therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God's words, or in the book of God's work, divinity, or philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficiency in both.

Francis Bacon
A man ought warily to begin charges which once begun will continue.

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

Francis Bacon
There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

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

Francis Bacon