FRANCIS BACON QUOTES VI

English philosopher (1561-1626)

Wise judges have prescribed that men may not rashly believe the confessions of witches, nor the evidence against them; for the witches themselves are imaginative; and people are credulous, and ready to impute accidents to witchcraft.

FRANCIS BACON

Natural History

Tags: witchcraft


Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: marriage


Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: virtue


If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins them.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: courtesy


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

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: Truth


Clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature; and ... mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but embaseth it.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: honesty


Since there must be borrowing and lending, and men are so hard of heart as they will not lend freely, usury must be permitted.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: lending


It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

FRANCIS BACON

Advancement of Learning

Tags: life


Virtue is like precious odors -- most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Adversity," Essays

Tags: virtue


If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Fortune," Essays

Tags: fortune


No people overcharged with tribute, is fit for empire.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of the True Greatness Of Kingdoms And Estates", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral


Examine thy customs of diet, sleep, exercise, apparel, and the like; and try, in any thing thou shalt judge hurtful, to discontinue it, by little and little; but so, as if thou dost find any inconvenience by the change, thou come back to it again: for it is hard to distinguish that which is generally held good and wholesome, from that which is good particularly, and fit for thine own body.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Regiment Of Health", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: change


Fortune is to be honored and respected, and it be but for her daughters, Confidence and Reputation. For those two, Felicity breedeth; the first within a man's self, the latter in others towards him.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Fortune", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: confidence


There is a cunning, which we in England call, the turning of the cat in the pan; which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him. And to say truth, it is not easy, when such a matter passed between two, to make it appear from which of them it first moved and began.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Cunning", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: cunning


States as great engines move slowly.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning


The voice of Nature will consent, whether the voice of man do or no.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning

Tags: nature


Concerning speech and words, the consideration of them hath produced the science of grammar. For man still striveth to reintegrate himself in those benedictions, from which by his fault he hath been deprived; and as he hath striven against the first general curse by the invention of all other arts, so hath he sought to come forth of the second general curse (which was the confusion of tongues) by the art of grammar.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning

Tags: art


The consciousness of good intentions, however unsuccessful, affords a joy more real, pure, and agreeable to nature than all the other means that can be furnished, either for obtaining one's desire or quieting the mind.

FRANCIS BACON

"Man's Duty to Society", Physical and Metaphysical Works

Tags: intention


It would be an 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.

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum


We cannot command nature except by obeying her.

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum

Tags: nature