FRANCIS BACON QUOTES VII

English philosopher (1561-1626)

Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: adversity


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

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: desire


Seek first the virtues of the mind; and other things either will come, or will not be wanted.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning

Tags: mind


It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum


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


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

Tags: lying


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


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

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: Truth


Nature is often hidden; sometimes overcome; seldom extinguished.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Nature in Men," Essays

Tags: nature


States as great engines move slowly.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning


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


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

Tags: fortune


In charity there is no excess.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature," Essays

Tags: charity


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

Tags: ambition


We cannot command nature except by obeying her.

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum

Tags: nature


The cord breaketh at last by the weakest pull.

FRANCIS BACON

On Seditions

Tags: weakness


The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded.

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum

Tags: understanding


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

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum

Tags: science


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

Tags: truth