C.M. Bacon Quotes

There is nothing more certain in nature than that it is impossible for any body to be utterly annihilated.

Praise is the reflection of virtue.

Since custom is the principal magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavor to obtain good customs.

The genius of any single man can no more equal learning, than a private purse hold way with the exchequer.

Come home to men's business and bosoms.

Learning teaches how to carry things in suspense, without prejudice, till you resolve it.

A lie faces God and shrinks from man.

The more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxicateth.

Men ought to find the difference between saltiness and bitterness. Certainly, he that hath a satirical vein, as he maketh others afraid of his wit, so he had need be afraid of others' memory.

Because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical.

The human understanding is no dry light, but receives an infusion from the will and affections... What a man had rather were true he more readily believes.

It is good discretion not make too much of any man at the first; because one cannot hold out that proportion.

The natures and dispositions of men are, not without truth, distinguished from the predominance of the planets.

If there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire.

Velazquez found the perfect balance between the ideal illustration which he was required to produce, and the overwhelming emotion he aroused in the spectator.

Nobility of birth commonly abateth industry.

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

Such philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume of subtile, sublime, or delectable speculation but shall be operative to the endowment and betterment of man's life.

...neither is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper parts of any science, if you stand but upon the level of the same science, and ascend not to a higher science.

There is no secrecy comparable to celerity.

All authority must be out of a man's self, turned . . . either upon an art, or upon a man.

Defer not charities till death; for certainly, if a man weigh it rightly, he that doth so is rather liberal of another man's than of his own.

I want a very ordered image, but I want it to come about by chance.

Painting gave meaning to my life which without it would not have had

Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.

There arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind.

So that every wand or staff of empire is forsooth curved at top.

One always starts work with the subject, no matter how tenuous it is, and one constructs an artificial structure by which one can trap the reality of the subject-matter that one has started from.

They are the best physicians, who being great in learning most incline to the traditions of experience, or being distinguished in practice do not reflect the methods and generalities of art.

I use all sorts of things to work with: old brooms, old sweaters, and all kinds of peculiar tools and materials... I paint to excite myself, and make something for myself.

Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb; Keep clean, be as fruit, earn life, and watch, Till the white-wing'd reapers come.

It's such an extraordinary supple medium that you never do quite know what paint will do.

Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.

There is superstition in avoiding superstition.

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

Man was formed for society.

The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this-that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.

The person is a poor judge who by an action can be disgraced more in failing than they can be honored in succeeding.

The images of mens wits and knowledge remain in books. They generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages

Painting today is pure intuition and luck and taking advantage of what happens when you splash the stuff down.

For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast.

A man were better relate himself to a statue or picture than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother.

I believe in deeply ordered chaos

Great Hypocrites are the real atheists.

Knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, and therefore where it entereth into a man it makes him swell.

The creative process is a cocktail of instinct, skill, culture and a highly creative feverishness.

The nature of things betrays itself more readily under the vexations of art than in its natural freedom.

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

I have often thought upon death, and I find it the least of all evils.

Men leave their riches either to their kindred or their friends, and moderate portions prosper best in both.