FRANCIS BACON QUOTES V

English philosopher (1561-1626)

Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress.

FRANCIS BACON

De Augmentis Scientiarum

Tags: wealth


Riches are for spending.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: money


Nobility of birth commonly abateth industry.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: nobility


There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: beauty


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

Tags: truth


Nothing doth so much keep men out of the Church, and drive men out of the Church, as breach of unity.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: church


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

Essays

Tags: revenge


There is in man's nature a secret inclination and motion towards love of others, which, if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable, as it is seen sometimes in friars. Nuptial love maketh mankind, friendly love perfecteth it, but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: love


If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins them.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: courtesy


Clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature; and ... mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but embaseth it.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: honesty


In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over he is superior.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: revenge


States as great engines move slowly.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning


Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Studies," Essays

Tags: books


Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Seditions and Troubles," Essays

Tags: money


The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum

Tags: opinion


Fortune is like the market, where many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Delays," Essays

Tags: fortune


If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Fortune," Essays

Tags: fortune


In charity there is no excess.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature," Essays

Tags: charity


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

The Advancement of Learning

Tags: history


Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced.

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum

Tags: knowledge