FRANCIS BACON QUOTES VIII

English philosopher (1561-1626)

As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: innovation


Riches are for spending.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: money


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

Tags: truth


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


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


They that deny a God destroy man's nobility, for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: God


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

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: Truth


Clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature; and ... mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but embaseth it.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: honesty


In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over he is superior.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: revenge


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


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


In charity there is no excess.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature," Essays

Tags: charity


Discretion of speech, is more than eloquence.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Discourse," 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

Tags: reading


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


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.)

Tags: death


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


Examine thy customs of diet, sleep, exercise, apparel, and the like; and try, in any thing thou shalt judge hurtful, to discontinue it, by little and little; but so, as if thou dost find any inconvenience by the change, thou come back to it again: for it is hard to distinguish that which is generally held good and wholesome, from that which is good particularly, and fit for thine own body.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Regiment Of Health", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: change


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

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum

Tags: science