FRANCIS BACON QUOTES V

English philosopher (1561-1626)

Who then to frail mortality shall trust
But limns the water, or but writes in dust.

FRANCIS BACON

The World

Tags: immortality


Nature is often hidden; sometimes overcome; seldom extinguished.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Nature in Men," Essays

Tags: nature


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

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Seditions and Troubles," Essays

Tags: money


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


Discretion of speech, is more than eloquence.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Discourse," Essays


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

"Of Studies," Essays

Tags: reading


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

"Of Ambition," Essays

Tags: ambition


Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.

FRANCIS BACON

"An Essay on Death," The Remaines of the Right Honourable Francis Lord Verulam (Bacon's authorship of this essay has been disputed by some historians.)

Tags: death


The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.

FRANCIS BACON, Novum Organum

Tags: understanding


Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: children


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

Tags: death


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

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: innovation


Riches are for spending.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: money


Nobility of birth commonly abateth industry.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: nobility


It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: desire


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


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


It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: lying


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