Francis Bacon Quotes

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.

Man, as the minister and interpreter of nature, is limited in act and understanding by his observation of the order of nature; neither his understanding nor his power extends further.

When I paint I am ageless, I just have the pleasure or the difficulty of painting.

I should have been, I don't know, a con-man, a robber or a prostitute. But it was vanity that made me choose painting, vanity and chance.

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.

It would be 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.

If you want to convey fact, this can only ever be done through a form of distortion. You must distort to transform what is called appearance into image.

The speaking in a perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but love.

Be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others.

All painting is an accident. But it's also not an accident, because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve.

The place of justice is a hallowed place.

Atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man.

The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men, is the vicissitude of sects and religions.

He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay of a whole age.

Vices of the time; vices of the man.

The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man.

Excusations, cessions, modesty itself well governed, are but arts of ostentation.

He that plots to be the only figure among ciphers [zeros], is the decay of the whole age.

I'm just trying to make images as accurately as possible off my nervous system as I can.

You could say that I have no inspiration, that I only need to paint.

I always think of myself not so much as a painter but as a medium for accident and chance.

Aristotle... a mere bond-servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious and well nigh useless.

But the best demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual experiment.

Men are rather beholden ... generally to chance or anything else, than to logic, for the invention of arts and sciences.

Friendship maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts.

Mark what a generosity and courage (a dog) will put on when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a God

For fountains, they are a Great Beauty and Refreshment, but Pools mar all, and make the Garden unwholesome, and full of Flies and Frogs.

The errors of young men are the ruin of business, but the errors of aged men amount to this, that more might have been done, or sooner.

Nothing is to be feared but fear.

The only really interesting thing is what happens between two people in a room.

Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly.

There is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death . . . Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it.

Princes are like heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration, but no rest.

Disciples do owe their masters only a temporary belief, and a suspension of their own judgment till they be fully instructed.

What, then, remains but that we still should cry, For being born, and, being born, to die?

For knowledge, too, is itself power.

If I might control the literature of the household, I would guarantee the well-being of Church and State.

The only hope [of science] ... is in genuine induction.

I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him. If I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.

Ask counsel of both timesof the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.

I would live to study, not study to live.

Salomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion.

When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him.

But by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this-that men despair and think things impossible.

Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

It was a high speech of Seneca that "The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired."

He who desires solitude is either an animal or a god.

We think according to nature. We speak according to rules. We act according to custom.

To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affection; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar.

I regret not starting to paint earlier...It is one of the few things I do regret.