Francis Bacon Quotes

581 Sourced Quotes

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

Francis Bacon
Vindictive persons live the life of witches; who, as they are mischievous, so end they infortunate.

Francis Bacon
It is generally better to deal by speech than by letter.

Francis Bacon
And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air.

Francis Bacon
But men must know that in this theater of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.

Francis Bacon
Philosophy directs us first to seek the goods of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied, or are not much wanted.

Francis Bacon
I knew one that when he wrote a letter he would put that which was most material in the postscript, as if it had been a bymatter.

Francis Bacon
But the best demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual experiment.

Francis Bacon
The zeal which begins with hypocrisy must conclude in treachery; at first it deceives, at last it betrays.

Francis Bacon
Nero was wont to say of his master, Seneca, that his style was like mortar without lime.

Francis Bacon
Such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happen much oftener.

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
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