FRANCIS BACON QUOTES IV

English philosopher (1561-1626)

If a man would cross a business, that he doubts some other would handsomely and effectually move, let him pretend to wish it well, and move it himself in such sort as may foil it.

FRANCIS BACON

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

Tags: business


The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Goodness and Goodness in Nature," Essays

Tags: desire


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


Fortune is like the market, where many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Delays," Essays

Tags: fortune


Virtue is like precious odors -- most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Adversity," Essays

Tags: virtue


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


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

Tags: Ambition


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


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


Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: marriage


Chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: fortune


Nothing doth so much keep men out of the Church, and drive men out of the Church, as breach of unity.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: church


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


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

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: virtue


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


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


Wise judges have prescribed that men may not rashly believe the confessions of witches, nor the evidence against them; for the witches themselves are imaginative; and people are credulous, and ready to impute accidents to witchcraft.

FRANCIS BACON

Natural History

Tags: witchcraft


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

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum

Tags: science


There is yet another fault (with which I will conclude this part) which is often noted in learned men, that they do many times fail to observe decency and discretion in their behaviour and carriage, and commit errors in small and ordinary points of action, so as the vulgar sort of capacities do make a judgment of them in greater matters by that which they find wanting in them in smaller. But this consequence doth oft deceive men, for which I do refer them over to that which was said by Themistocles, arrogantly and uncivilly being applied to himself out of his own mouth, but, being applied to the general state of this question, pertinently and justly, when, being invited to touch a lute, he said, "He could not fiddle, but he could make a small town a great state." So no doubt many may be well seen in the passages of government and policy which are to seek in little and punctual occasions. I refer them also to that which Plato said of his master Socrates, whom he compared to the gallipots of apothecaries, which on the outside had apes and owls and antiques, but contained within sovereign and precious liquors and confections; acknowledging that, to an external report, he was not without superficial levities and deformities, but was inwardly replenished with excellent virtues and powers. And so much touching the point of manners of learned men.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning

Tags: Men