Francis Bacon - Essays (1597)

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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
I had rather believe all the fables in the legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind.

Francis Bacon
This communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half.

Francis Bacon
As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.

Francis Bacon
The difficulties in princes' business are many and great, but the greatest difficulty is often in their own mind.

Francis Bacon
The virtue of prosperity, is temperance; the virtue of adversity, is fortitude; which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New; which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job, than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.

Francis Bacon
The winning of honor, is but the revealing of a man's virtue and worth, without disadvantage.

Francis Bacon
There is nothing that makes a man suspect much, more than to know little; and, therefore, men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not to keep their suspicions to smother.

Francis Bacon
Nature is often hidden; sometimes overcome; seldom extinguished.

Francis Bacon
Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects than for settled business.

Francis Bacon
The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men is the vicissitude of sects and religions.

Francis Bacon
It is yet a higher speech of his than the other, It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.

Francis Bacon
To seek to extinguish anger utterly, is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: Be angry, but sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Anger must be limited and confined, both in race and in time.

Francis Bacon
It hath been an opinion that the French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are; but howsoever it be between nations, certainly it is so between man and man.

Francis Bacon
Houses are built to live in and not to look on; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had.

Francis Bacon
Death…openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy.

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
The desire of power in excess caused angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity is no excess, neither can man nor angels come into danger by it.

Francis Bacon
Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.

Francis Bacon
The desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess: neither can angel or man come into danger by it.

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
Seeming wise men may make shift to get opinion; but let no man choose them for employment; for certainly you were better take for business, a man somewhat absurd, than over-formal.

Francis Bacon
Nay, number (itself) in armies, importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for (as Virgil saith) it never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.

Francis Bacon
There is surely no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and endings of things.

Francis Bacon
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.

Francis Bacon
So ambitious men, if they find the way open for their rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy than dangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they become secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased, when things go backward.

Francis Bacon
Neither is money the sinews of war (as it is trivially said).

Francis Bacon
Base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark.

Francis Bacon
Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.

Francis Bacon