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(no category)
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There be three things which make a nation great and prosperous: a fertile soil, busy workshops, easy conveyance for men and goods from place to place.
-Francis Bacon
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Ask counsel of both timesof the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.
-Francis Bacon
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Croesus said to Cambyses; That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons.
-Francis Bacon
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Nay, number itself in armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for, as Virgil saith, It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.
-Francis Bacon
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He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marryA young man not yet, an elder man not at all.
-Francis Bacon
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Ability
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Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.
-Francis Bacon
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Action(s)
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It was prettily devised of Aesop, The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said, what dust do I raise!
-Francis Bacon
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All of our actions take their hue from the complexion of the heart, as landscapes their variety from light.
-Francis Bacon
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Adaptability
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They that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.
-Francis Bacon
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Adversity
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Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.
-Francis Bacon
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Advice
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He that gives good advice builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example builds with both.
-Francis Bacon
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There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self.
-Francis Bacon
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Age
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Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
-Francis Bacon
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Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.
-Francis Bacon
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Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.
-Francis Bacon
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Anger
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Anger makes dull men witty -- but it keeps them poor.
-Francis Bacon
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Art
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Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.
-Francis Bacon
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Atheism
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Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.
-Francis Bacon
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Atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man.
-Francis Bacon
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It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
-Francis Bacon
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I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind.
-Francis Bacon
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Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men.
-Francis Bacon
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Beauty
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The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.
-Francis Bacon
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There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
-Francis Bacon
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Bravery
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Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.
-Francis Bacon
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Certainty
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If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin with doubts, and are patient in them, we shall end in certainties.
-Francis Bacon
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Change
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That things are changed, and that nothing really perishes, and that the sum of matter remains exactly the same, is sufficiently certain.
-Francis Bacon
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Charity
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In charity there is no excess.
-Francis Bacon
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Choice
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Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.
-Francis Bacon
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Conscience
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A good conscience is a continual feast.
-Francis Bacon
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Consistency
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Look to make your course regular, that men may know beforehand what they may expect.
-Francis Bacon
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Conversation
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Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.
-Francis Bacon
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Creation
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God's first creature, which was light.
-Francis Bacon
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Customs
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People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.
-Francis Bacon
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Death
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I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
-Francis Bacon
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It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.
-Francis Bacon, Essays, 1625
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Deception/Lying
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Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.
-Francis Bacon
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The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three. First to lay asleep opposition and to surprise. For where a man's intentions are published, it is an alarum to call up all that are against them. The second is to reserve a man's self a fair retreat: for if a man engage himself, by a manifest declaration, he must go through, or take a fall. The third is, the better to discover the mind of another. For to him that opens himself, men will hardly show themselves adverse; but will fair let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to freedom of thought.
-Francis Bacon
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Discovery
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They are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they see nothing but sea.
-Francis Bacon
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Dissent
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Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.
-Francis Bacon
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Doctors
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Cure the disease and kill the patient.
-Francis Bacon
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Doubt
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Suspicions that the mind, of itself, gathers, are but buzzes; but suspicions that are artificially nourished and put into men's heads by the tales and whisperings of others, have stings.
-Francis Bacon
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In contemplation, if a man begins with certainties he shall end in doubts; but if he be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
-Francis Bacon
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Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.
-Francis Bacon
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Suspicion amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they never fly by twilight.
-Francis Bacon
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If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
-Francis Bacon
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There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little, and therefore men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not keep their suspicions in smother.
-Francis Bacon
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Effort
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There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.
-Francis Bacon
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Envy / Jealousy
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None of the affections have been noted to fascinate and bewitch but envy.
-Francis Bacon
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Evil
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For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.
Bacon was referring to Jesus
-Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, bk. 2, ch. 21, sct. 9, 1605
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Excess
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Riches are for spending.
-Francis Bacon
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Facts
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Men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts.
-Francis Bacon
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Fame
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Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.
-Francis Bacon
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Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.
-Francis Bacon
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Family
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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
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Fate & Destiny
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Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.
-Francis Bacon
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Ill Fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived not.
-Francis Bacon
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Fear
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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
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It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.
-Francis Bacon
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Fortune
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Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible.
-Francis Bacon
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Friends
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Without friends the world is but a wilderness. There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his grieves to his friend, but he grieveth the less.
-Francis Bacon
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The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.
-Francis Bacon
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Gardens
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God almighty first planted a garden: and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasure.
-Francis Bacon
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Generosity
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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 to them.
-Francis Bacon, Essays, Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature, 1625
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God
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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
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God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.
-Francis Bacon
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Gossip
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Discretion of speech is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words or in good order.
-Francis Bacon, Of Discourse
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Grace
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A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.
-Francis Bacon
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Happiness
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To be free minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one of the best precepts of long lasting.
-Francis Bacon
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Health
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A healthy body is a guest chamber for the soul: a sick body is a prison.
-Francis Bacon
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Heresy
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For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.
-Francis Bacon
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History
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It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man's judgment.
-Francis Bacon
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Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.
-Francis Bacon
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Home
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Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.
-Francis Bacon
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Honor
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The person is a poor judge who by an action can be disgraced more in failing than they can be honored in succeeding.
-Francis Bacon
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Hope
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Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper.
-Francis Bacon
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Humanity
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Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.
-Francis Bacon
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Humor
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Imagination was given man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for what he is.
-Francis Bacon
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Ideas
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In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.
-Francis Bacon
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Imagination
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Images also help me find and realise ideas. I look at hundreds of very different, contrasting images and I pinch details from them, rather like people who eat from other people
-Francis Bacon
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Innovation
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As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.
-Francis Bacon
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Integrity
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It is not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong; not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich; not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned; and not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity.
-Francis Bacon
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Intelligence
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God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.
-Francis Bacon
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Justice
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Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.
-Francis Bacon
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If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us.
-Francis Bacon
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The place of justice is a hallowed place.
-Francis Bacon
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Knowledge
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For knowledge itself is power.
latin: Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.; always seen as Knowledge is power and appears inscribed on the wall of the north lobby of The Library of Congress (The Thomas Jefferson Building)
-Francis Bacon, Meditationes sacrae 11, de haeresibus, 1597
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Knowledge and human power are synonymous.
-Francis Bacon
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Law
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Judges ought to be more learned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.
-Francis Bacon
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Learning
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Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.
-Francis Bacon
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Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability.
-Francis Bacon
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I would live to study, and not study to live.
-Francis Bacon
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Life
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Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.
-Francis Bacon
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Love
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For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.
-Francis Bacon
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Nuptial love makes mankind; friendly love perfects it; but wanton love corrupts and debases it.
-Francis Bacon
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Marriage
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Wives are young men's mistresses; companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.
-Francis Bacon
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Mathematics
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If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.
-Francis Bacon, Essays, 1625
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Men
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Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.
-Francis Bacon
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Money
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No man's fortune can be an end worthy of his being.
-Francis Bacon
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Money makes a good servant, but a bad master.
-Francis Bacon
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Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
-Francis Bacon
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Be not penny-wise. Riches have wings. Sometimes they fly away of themselves, and sometimes they must be set flying to bring in more.
-Francis Bacon
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If money be not they servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.
-Francis Bacon
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Mystery
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Mysteries are due to secrecy.
-Francis Bacon
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Nation, Nationality, Nationalism
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The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are.
-Francis Bacon
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Nature
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The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.
-Francis Bacon
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Nature is commanded by obeying her.
-Francis Bacon
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This is the foundation of all. We are not to imagine or suppose, but to discover, what nature does or may be made to do.
-Francis Bacon
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Nudity
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Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body, and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.
-Francis Bacon
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Opportunity
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A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
-Francis Bacon
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Opportunity makes a thief.
-Francis Bacon
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Parenting
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The joys of parents are secret, and so are their grieves and fears.
-Francis Bacon
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Past, the
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Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.
-Francis Bacon
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Patience
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Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.
-Francis Bacon
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Philosophy
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We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.
-Francis Bacon
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Philosophers make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high.
-Francis Bacon
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Poetry
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The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man's body.
-Francis Bacon
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Politics
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It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.
-Francis Bacon
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Power
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Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.
-Francis Bacon
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It is a strange desire, to seek power and lose liberty, or to seek power over others and to lose power over a man's self. The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains, and it is sometimes base; and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing.
-Francis Bacon, Essay 'Of Great Place'
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Prejudice
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All colors will agree in the dark.
-Francis Bacon
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Present, the
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Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.
-Francis Bacon
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Problems
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He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?.
-Francis Bacon
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Professionalism
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I hold every man a debtor to his profession.
-Francis Bacon
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Progress
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Acorns were good until bread was found.
-Francis Bacon
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Proverbial Wisdom
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The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs.
-Francis Bacon
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Questions
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Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.
-Francis Bacon
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A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.
-Francis Bacon
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A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
-Francis Bacon
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Reading
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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
-Francis Bacon, Essays, Of Studies
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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
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Responsibility
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The mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.
-Francis Bacon
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Revenge
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Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
-Francis Bacon
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A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
-Francis Bacon
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Science
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Science is but an image of the truth.
-Francis Bacon
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Service
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People of great position are servants times three, servants of their country, servants of fame, and servants of business.
-Francis Bacon
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Believing that I was born for the service of mankind, and regarding the care of the commonwealth as a kind of common property which, like the air and the water, belongs to everybody, I set myself to consider in what way mankind might be best served, and what service I was myself best fitted by nature to perform.
-Francis Bacon, 1603
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Silence
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Silence is the virtue of fools.
-Francis Bacon
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Solitude
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Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
-Francis Bacon
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Strength
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Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.
-Francis Bacon
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Success & Failure
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Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.
-Francis Bacon
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Superstition
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The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.
-Francis Bacon
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Thought
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In thinking, if a person begins with certainties, they shall end in doubts, but if they can begin with doubts, they will end in certainties.
-Francis Bacon
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Time
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To choose time is to save time.
-Francis Bacon
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Training
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Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
-Francis Bacon
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Truth
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Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion.
-Francis Bacon
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What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.
-Francis Bacon
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Truth is a naked and open daylight
-Francis Bacon, Essay Of Truth
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It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tost upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage ground of truth... and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below.
-Francis Bacon
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Vanity
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Of great wealth there is no real use, except in its distribution, the rest is just conceit.
-Francis Bacon
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Variety
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Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.
-Francis Bacon
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Virtue
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Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.
-Francis Bacon
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War
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The best armor is to keep out of gunshot.
-Francis Bacon
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Wealth
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The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.
-Francis Bacon
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Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.
-Francis Bacon
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Wisdom
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There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.
-Francis Bacon
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Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.
-Francis Bacon
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Youth
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Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.
-Francis Bacon
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Books by and about Francis Bacon
