English philosopher (1561-1626)
Hurl your calumnies boldly; something is sure to stick.
FRANCIS BACON
De Augmentis Scientiarum
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
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
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
Good thoughts, though God accept them, yet towards men are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
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
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
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
Nothing doth so much keep men out of the Church, and drive men out of the Church, as breach of unity.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
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
Seek first the virtues of the mind; and other things either will come, or will not be wanted.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it.
FRANCIS BACON
Advancement of Learning
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Nobility of birth commonly abateth industry.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Riches are for spending.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
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
As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection.
FRANCIS BACON
Advancement of Learning