English philosopher (1561-1626)
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Studies," Essays
Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Seditions and Troubles," Essays
Virtue is like precious odors -- most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Adversity," Essays
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
In charity there is no excess.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature," Essays
Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles, which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and, that which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop nor turn.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Youth and Age", Essays; or Counsels Civil and Moral
Discretion of speech, is more than eloquence.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Discourse," Essays
No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Truth," 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
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
Time ... is the author of authors.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
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.)
The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.
FRANCIS BACON
Essex's Device
Who then to frail mortality shall trust
But limns the water, or but writes in dust.
FRANCIS BACON
The World
Ambition is like choler; which is an humor that maketh men active, earnest, full of alacrity, and stirring, if it be not stopped. But if it be stopped, and cannot have his way, it becometh adust, and thereby malign and venomous.
SIR FRANCIS BACON
"Of Ambition" Essays
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
He that hath a satirical vein, as maketh others afraid of his wit, so he need be afraid of others' memory.
FRANCIS BACON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Since there must be borrowing and lending, and men are so hard of heart as they will not lend freely, usury must be permitted.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
The consciousness of good intentions, however unsuccessful, affords a joy more real, pure, and agreeable to nature than all the other means that can be furnished, either for obtaining one's desire or quieting the mind.
FRANCIS BACON
"Man's Duty to Society", Physical and Metaphysical Works
What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them, as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor, which men take in finding out of truth, nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural, though corrupt love, of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians, examineth the matter, and is at a stand, to think what should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell; this same truth, is a naked, and open day-light, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs, of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. 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
"Of Truth", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral