Francis Bacon Quotes (437 Quotes)

God's first creature, which was light.

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

Suspicion amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they never fly by twilight.

It is a miserable state of mind, to have few things to desire and many things to fear And yet that commonly is the case of kings.

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.

Generally he perceived in men of devout simplicity this opinion that the secrets of nature were the secrets of God, part of that glory into which man is not to press too boldly.

In civil business what first boldness what second and third boldness and yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness.

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

Like strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones.

The Trinitarian believes a virgin to be the mother of a son who is her maker.

All colors will agree in the dark.

If you dissemble sometimes your knowledge of that you are thought to know, you shall be thought, another time, to know that you know not.

One of the fathers saith ... that old men go to death, and death comes to young men.

Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

Time is the greatest of innovators.

The mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.

Study After Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X,

Nuptial love maketh mankind friendly love perfecteth it But wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.

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

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

Opportunity makes a thief.

The cord breaketh at last by the weakest pull.

They that deny a God destroy mans nobility for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body and, if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust, But limns the water, or but writes in dust.

If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.

Friends are thieves of time.

Suspicions that the mind, of itself, gathers, are but buzzes but suspicions that are artificially nourished and put into men's heads by the tales and whisperings of others, have stings.

Without friends the world is but a wilderness. There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more and no man that imparteth his grieves to his friend, but he grieveth the less.

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.

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.

That which above all other yields the sweetest smell in the air is the violet.

Boldness is an ill-keeper of promise.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

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

Men in great place are thrice servants servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business.

Beauty is like summer fruits which are easy to corrupt and cannot last.

Intermingle . . . jest with earnest.

Those herbs which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but, being trodden upon and crushed, are three that is, burnet, wild thyme and watermints. Therefore, you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread.

Sir Amice Pawlet, when he saw too much haste made in any matter, was wont to say, Stay a while, that we may make an end the sooner

The inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or the wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.

Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.

Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper.

There be three things which make a nation great and prosperous a fertile soil, busy workshops, easy conveyance for men and goods from place to place

In peace the sons bury their fathers and in war the fathers bury their sons.

For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself.

Knowledge is power.