Francis Bacon - Man Quotes

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A wise man will make more opportunities, than he finds.

Francis Bacon
Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon
The two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation: If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.

Francis Bacon
Men seem neither to understand their riches nor their strength; of the former they believe greater things than they should; of the latter much less. Self-reliance and self-denial will teach a man to drink out of his own cistern, and eat his own sweet bread, and to learn and labor truly to get his living, and carefully to expend the good things committed to his trust.

Francis Bacon
Man, as the minister and interpreter of nature, dies and understands as much as his observations on the order of nature, either with regard to things or the mind permit him, and neither knows or is capable of more.

Francis Bacon
Envy is ever joined with the comparing of a man's self; and where there is no comparison, no envy.

Francis Bacon
The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man's body.

Francis Bacon
The genius of any single man can no more equal learning, than a private purse hold way with the exchequer.

Francis Bacon
Socrates was pronounced by the Oracle of Delphos to be the wisest man in Greece, which he would turn from himself ironically, saying there could be nothing in him to verify the oracle, except this, that he was not wise and knew it, and others were not wise and knew it not.

Francis Bacon
It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man, so weak, but it mates, and masters, the fear of death; and therefore, death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear preoccupieth it.

Francis Bacon
Love and envy make a man pine, which other affections do not, because they are not so continual.

Francis Bacon
It hath been well said that the arch-flatterer, with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man's self.

Francis Bacon
It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. For while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity.

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
It has been well said that 'the arch-flatterer with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence is a man's self.'

Francis Bacon
Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when that faileth, he groweth out of use.

Francis Bacon
The Scripture saith, The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God; it is not said, The fool hath thought in his heart; so as he rather saith it, by rote to himself, as that he would have, than that he can thoroughly believe it, or be persuaded of it. For none deny, there is a God, but those, for whom it maketh that there were no God. It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man, than by this; that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it, within themselves, and would be glad to be strengthened, by the consent of others.

Francis Bacon
Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature. Beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.

Francis Bacon
There is no way but to meditate and ruminate well upon the effects of anger, — how it troubles man's life; and the best time to do this is to look back upon anger when the fit is thoroughly over.

Francis Bacon
There is a cunning which we in England call "the turning of the cat in the pan;" which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him.

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
Bashfulness is a great hindrance to a man, both in uttering his sentiments and in understanding what is proposed to him; 't is therefore good to press forward with discretion, both in discourse and company of the better sort.

Francis Bacon
I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.

Francis Bacon
The more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxicateth.

Francis Bacon
Lukewarm persons think they may accommodate points of religion by middle ways and witty reconcilements, — as if they would make an arbitrament between God and man.

Francis Bacon
For it being the nature of the mind of man (to the extreme prejudice of knowledge) to delight in the spacious liberty of generalities, as in a champaign region, and not in the enclosures of particularity, the mathematics of all other knowledge were the goodliest fields to satisfy that appetite.

Francis Bacon
If thou shalt aspire after the glorious acts of men, thy working shall be accompanied with compunction and strife, and thy remembrance followed with distaste and upbraidings; and justly doth it come to pass towards thee, O man, that since thou, which art God's work, doest him no reason in yielding him well-pleasing service, even thine own works also should reward thee with the like fruit of bitterness.

Francis Bacon
Man always believes more readily that which he prefers. He, therefore, rejects difficulties for want of patience in investigation.

Francis Bacon
Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

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

Francis Bacon