Quotes by
Francis Bacon |
1561-1626 , English philosopher
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban, was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, and author. He served both as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England. He is remembered in literary terms for the sharp worldly wisdom of a few dozen essays; in constitutional history for his power as a speaker in Parliament and in famous trials and as James I’s lord chancellor; and intellectually as a man who claimed all knowledge as his province.
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Quotations
| • | Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper. 15 |
| • | I usually accept bribes from both sides so that tainted money can never influence my decision. 11 |
| • | Knowledge is power. 11 |
| • | Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is. 10 |
| • | Money is a good servant but a bad master. 10 |
| • | Cure the disease and kill the patient. 9 |
| • | The worst men often give the best advice. 8 |
| • | The remedy is worse than the disease. 7 |
| • | The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery. 7 |
| • | Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true. 7 |
| • | If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us. 7 |
| • | If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible. 7 |
| • | Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly. 6 |
| • | A small task if it be really daily will beat the efforts of a spasmodic Hercules. 6 |
| • | It is impossible to love and be wise. 6 |
| • | A man that is young in years may be old in hours if he have lost no time. 6 |
| • | The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses. 6 |
| • | There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying. 6 |
| • | Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise. 6 |
| • | Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home. 6 |
| • | Age appears best in four things: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read. 5 |
| • | Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses. 5 |
| • | In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present. 5 |
| • | A wise man will make more opportunities, than he finds. 5 |
| • | Silence is the virtue of a fool. 5 |
| • | In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior. 4 |
| • | He of whom many are afraid ought to fear many. 4 |
| • | There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. 4 |
| • | Money is like muck, not good except it be spread. 4 |
| • | Seek first the virtues of the mind; and other things either will come, or will not be wanted. 4 |
| • | But men must know that in this theater of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on. 4 |
| • | The age of antiquity is the youth of the world. 4 |
| • | Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes. 3 |
| • | We rise to great heights by a winding staircase of small steps. 3 |
| • | Journeys at youth are part of the education; but at maturity, are part of the experience. 3 |
| • | Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly. 3 |
| • | Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul. 3 |
| • | If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. 3 |
| • | A bachelor's life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner. 3 |
| • | Nature is a labyrinth in which the very haste you move with will make you lose your way. 3 |
| • | Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study. 3 |
| • | Discretion in speech is more than eloquence. 3 |
| • | Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. 3 |
| • | Chiefly the mold of a man's fortune is in his own hands. 3 |
| • | Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. 3 |
| • | “What is truth?” said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. 3 |
| • | States as great engines move slowly. 3 |
| • | All colours will agree in the dark. 2 |
| • | A bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint. 2 |
| • | Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand - and melting like a snowflake. 1 |
| • | Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority. 1 |
| • | To say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men. 1 |
| • | The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, in Apollo, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man's body and reduce it to harmony. 1 |
