Francis Bacon - Man Quotes

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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
Dangers are no more light if they once seem light, and more dangers have deceived men than forced them; nay, it were better to meet some dangers half-way, though they come nothing near, than to keep too long a watch upon their approaches; for if a man watch too long it is odds he will fall fast asleep.

Francis Bacon
It is good discretion not to make too much of any man at the first; because one cannot hold out that proportion.

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

Francis Bacon
Generally he perceived in men of devout simplicity this opinion: that the secrets of nature were the secrets of God, — part of that glory into which man is not to press too boldly.

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
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
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
For man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection: and they be three wisdoms of divers natures, which do often sever: wisdom of the behaviour, wisdom of business, and wisdom of state.

Francis Bacon
Anger is certainly a kind of baseness; as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns; children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware, that they carry their anger rather with scorn, than with fear; so that they may seem rather to be above the injury, than below it; which is a thing easily done, if a man will give law to himself in it.

Francis Bacon
Another argument of hope may be drawn from this — that some of the inventions already known are such as before they were discovered it could hardly have entered any man's head to think of; they would have been simply set aside as impossible. For in conjecturing what may be men set before them the example of what has been, and divine of the new with an imagination preoccupied and colored by the old; which way of forming opinions is very fallacious, for streams that are drawn from the springheads of nature do not always run in the old channels.

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

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
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
Alchemy may be compared to the man who told his sons he had left them gold buried somewhere in his vineyard; where they by digging found no gold, but by turning up the mould, about the roots of their vines, procured a plentiful vintage. So the search and endeavors to make gold have brought many useful inventions and instructive experiments to light.

Francis Bacon
Therefore, because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical.

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
For there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself, as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, That it is impossible to love, and to be wise.

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

Francis Bacon
There was a young man in Rome that was very like Augustus Caesar; Augustus took knowledge of it and sent for the man, and asked him "Was your mother never at Rome?" He answered "No Sir; but my father was."

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 not the pleasure of curiosity, nor the quiet of resolution, nor the raising of the spirit, nor victory of wit, nor faculty of speech … that are the true ends of knowledge … but it is a restitution and reinvesting, in great part, of man to the sovereignty and power, for whensoever he shall be able to call the creatures by their true names, he shall again command them.

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
If a man can play the true logician, and have judgment as well as invention, he may do great matters.

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

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
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