Francis Bacon Quotes

 



"Friends are thieves of time."

"In charity there is no excess."

"Nothing is terrible except fear itself."

"By indignities men come to dignities."

"God's first creature, which was light."

"Time, which is the author of authors."

"A prudent question is one-half of wisdom."

"He that hath knowledge spareth his words."

"Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper."

"Money is like muck, not good except it be spread."

"Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite."

"Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice."

"A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds."

"God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires."

"If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us."

"Truth therefore and utility are here the very same thing…"

"All good moral philosophy is but the handmaid to religion."

"Truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion."

"The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied."

"In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present."

"A bachelor's life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner."

"Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue."

"The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs."

"I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death."

"Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable."

"Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse."

"I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am."

"Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New."

"If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world."

"It is not possible to run a course aright when the goal itself has not been rightly placed."

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

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

"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator."

"The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall."

"Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt."

"For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages."

"But men must know, that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on."

"A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."

"Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other."

"Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read."

"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties."

"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."

"He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief."

"A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others. For men's minds, will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil;"

"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."

"Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing."

"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."

"I bequeath my soul to God... My body to be buried obscurely. For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next age."

"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."

"He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other."

"Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule."

"The greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men."

Compiled by Thomas George
editor@Wisdom-of-the-Wise.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Children and the Bible
Bible answers for children