FRANCIS BACON QUOTES VIII

English philosopher (1561-1626)

The stage is more beholding to love than the life of man. For as to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief, sometimes like a Siren, sometimes like a Fury.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: love


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

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: revenge


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


Truth ... is the sovereign good of human nature.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: Truth


They that deny a God destroy man's nobility, for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: God


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


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


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


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


It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum


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

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: desire


Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: adversity


Nobility of birth commonly abateth industry.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: nobility


Riches are for spending.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: money


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


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


Knowledge is power.

FRANCIS BACON

Meditationes Sacrae

Tags: knowledge


Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: children


Examine thy customs of diet, sleep, exercise, apparel, and the like; and try, in any thing thou shalt judge hurtful, to discontinue it, by little and little; but so, as if thou dost find any inconvenience by the change, thou come back to it again: for it is hard to distinguish that which is generally held good and wholesome, from that which is good particularly, and fit for thine own body.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Regiment Of Health", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: change


The real and legitimate goal of the sciences is the endowment of human life with new commodities.

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum

Tags: science