FRANCIS BACON QUOTES IV

English philosopher (1561-1626)

The voice of Nature will consent, whether the voice of man do or no.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning

Tags: nature


Concerning speech and words, the consideration of them hath produced the science of grammar. For man still striveth to reintegrate himself in those benedictions, from which by his fault he hath been deprived; and as he hath striven against the first general curse by the invention of all other arts, so hath he sought to come forth of the second general curse (which was the confusion of tongues) by the art of grammar.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning

Tags: art


Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: children


It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

FRANCIS BACON

Advancement of Learning

Tags: life


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

Tags: children


Riches are for spending.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: money


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

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: beauty


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

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: desire


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


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


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

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: Truth


Death hath this also; that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: death


A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: virtue


Truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not shew the masks and mummeries and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelights.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Truth," Essays

Tags: truth


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


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


Therefore, as atheism is in all respects hateful, so in this, that it depriveth human nature of the means to exalt itself, above human frailty.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Atheism", Essays

Tags: atheism


The cord breaketh at last by the weakest pull.

FRANCIS BACON

On Seditions

Tags: weakness


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


Concerning those that are more or less subject to envy: First, persons of eminent virtue, when they are advanced, are less envied. For their fortune seemeth, but due unto them; and no man envieth the payment of a debt, but rewards and liberality rather. Again, envy is ever joined with the comparing of a man's self; and where there is no comparison, no envy; and therefore kings are not envied, but by kings. Nevertheless it is to be noted, that unworthy persons are most envied, at their first coming in, and afterwards overcome it better; whereas contrariwise, persons of worth and merit are most envied, when their fortune continueth long. For by that time, though their virtue be the same, yet it hath not the same lustre; for fresh men grow up that darken it.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Envy", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: fortune