Quotes By Author
Quotations By Francis Bacon
Ability
Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.
Adversity
Prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue.
Adversity
Prosperity is not without many fears and distaste; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.
Beauty
The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.
Beauty
Beauty is as summer fruits, which are easy to corrupt and cannot last; and for the most part it makes a dissolute youth, and an age a little out of countenance; but if it light well, it makes virtue shine and vice blush.
Beauty
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
Beliefs
If a man will begin incertainties he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin in doubts he shall end in certainties
Beliefs
For what a man would like to to be true, that he more readily believes.
Books
Some books are to be tasted; others swallowed; and some to be chewed and digested.
Change
He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.
Culture
A man's nature, runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other.
Danger
Dangers are no more light if they once seem light, and more dangers have deceived men than forced them; nay, it were better to meet some dangers half-way, though they come nothing near, than to keep too long a watch upon their approaches; for if a man watch too long it is odds he will all fast asleep.
Discretion
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.
Fortune
The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate. -- Francis Bacon
Friendship
Friends are thieves of time. -- Francis Bacon
Goodness
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. -- Francis Bacon
Health
There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.
Justice
Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws. -- Francis Bacon
Knowledge
If a man will begin with certainties, he will end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he will end in certainties.
Literature
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. -- Francis Bacon
Marriage
Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.
Nature
Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished. -- Francis Bacon
Thoughts
Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable. -- Francis Bacon
Truth
Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
Wealth
Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread. -- Francis Bacon