FRANCIS BACON QUOTES
English philosopher (1561-1626)
Riches are for spending.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it.
FRANCIS BACON
Advancement of Learning
Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that, if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Seditions and Troubles," Essays
What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them, as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor, which men take in finding out of truth, nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural, though corrupt love, of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians, examineth the matter, and is at a stand, to think what should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell; this same truth, is a naked, and open day-light, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs, of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond, or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds, of a number of men, poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Truth", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
The master of superstition, is the people; and in all superstition, wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Superstition", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
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
Advancement of Learning
God Almighty first planted a garden; and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
FRANCIS BACON
Apothegms
Silence is the virtue of fools.
FRANCIS BACON
De Augmentis Scientiarum
Knowledge is power.
FRANCIS BACON
Meditationes Sacrae
All colours will agree in the dark.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection.
FRANCIS BACON
Advancement of Learning
As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Goodness and Goodness in Nature," Essays
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays