Francis Bacon quotes - page 19

Nature is often hidden; sometimes overcome; seldom extinguished. Force, maketh nature more violent in the return; doctrine and discourse, maketh nature less importune; but custom only doth alter and subdue nature. (Francis Bacon)
These things are but toys, to come amongst such serious observations. View quote
Francis Bacon
Some have certain common places, and themes, wherein they are good and want variety; which kind of poverty is for the most part tedious, and when it is once perceived, ridiculous. View quote
Francis Bacon
Some, in their discourse, desire rather commendation of wit, in being able to hold all arguments, than of judgment, in discerning what is true; as if it were a praise, to know what might be said, and not, what should be thought. View quote
Francis Bacon
Riches are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions. View quote
Francis Bacon
It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion, as is unworthy of him. For the one is unbelief, the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity. View quote
Francis Bacon
Chaste women are often proud and froward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity. It is one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if she think her husband wise; which she will never do, if she find him jealous. View quote
Francis Bacon
A single life doth well with churchmen; for charity will hardly water the ground, where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates; for if they be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant, five times worse than a wife. View quote
Francis Bacon
Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants; but not always best subjects; for they are light to run away; and almost all fugitives, are of that condition. View quote
Francis Bacon
The perpetuity by generation is common to beasts; but memory, merit, and noble works, are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men; which have sought to express the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed. View quote
Francis Bacon
They increase the cares of life; but they mitigate the remembrance of death. (Francis Bacon)
The joys of parents are secret; and so are their griefs and fears. They cannot utter the one; nor they will not utter the other. View quote
Francis Bacon
As for talkers and futile persons, they are commonly vain and credulous withal. For he that talketh what he knoweth, will also talk what he knoweth not. View quote
Francis Bacon
In few words, mysteries are due to secrecy. Besides (to say truth) 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. View quote
Francis Bacon
Dissimulations is but a faint kind of policy, or wisdom; for it asketh a strong wit, and a strong heart, to know when to tell truth, and to do it. Therefore it is the weaker sort of politics, that are the great dissemblers. View quote
Francis Bacon
Some, when they take revenge, are desirous, the party should know, whence it cometh. This is the more generous. For the delight seemeth to be, not so much in doing the hurt, as in making the party repent. View quote
Francis Bacon
He that dies in an earnest pursuit, is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed, and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the dolors of death. View quote
Francis Bacon
Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations, there is sometimes mixture of vanity, and of superstition. View quote
Francis Bacon
The great end of life is not knowledge but action. View quote
Francis Bacon
Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor. View quote
Francis Bacon
Knowledge and human power are synonymous. (Francis Bacon)
Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time. View quote
Francis Bacon
I have taken all knowledge to be my province. View quote
Francis Bacon
Nature is a labyrinth in which the very haste you move with will make you lose your way. View quote
Francis Bacon
Another argument of hope may be drawn from this - that some of the inventions already known are such as before they were discovered it could hardly have entered any man's head to think of; they would have been simply set aside as impossible. For in conjecturing what may be men set before them the example of what has been, and divine of the new with an imagination preoccupied and colored by the old; which way of forming opinions is very fallacious, for streams that are drawn from the springheads of nature do not always run in the old channels. View quote
Francis Bacon