Best 586 quotes of Francis Bacon on MyQuotes

All will come out in the washing.

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

A bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint.

Above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is Nunc dimittis, when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy.

Acorns were good until bread was found.

A forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread it out.

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

Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in science by reverence for antiquity, by the authority of men counted great in philosophy, and then by general consent.

Again there is another great and powerful cause why the sciences have made but little progress; which is this. It is not possible to run a course aright when the goal itself has not been rightly placed.

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.

A good name is like precious ointment ; it filleth all round about, and will not easily away; for the odors of ointments are more durable than those of flowers.

A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.

A just fear of an imminent danger, though be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war.

A king that would not feel his crown too heavy for him, must wear it every day; but if he think it too light, he knoweth not of what metal it is made.

A lie faces God and shrinks from man.

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

All artists are vain, they long to be recognized and to leave something to posterity. They want to be loved, and at the same time they want to be free. But nobody is free.

All bravery stands upon comparisons.

All colours will agree in the dark.

All of our actions take their hue from the complexion of the heart, as landscapes their variety from light.

All painting is an accident. But it's also not an accident, because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve.

All superstition is much the same whether it be that of astrology, dreams, omen, retributive judgment, or the like, in all of which the deluded believers observe events which are fulfilled, but neglect and pass over their failure, though it be much more common.

All the crimes on earth do not destroy so many of the human race nor alienate so much property as drunkenness.

Always let losers have their words.

A man cannot speak to his son, but as a father; to his wife, but as a husband; to his enemy, but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak, as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person.

A man finds himself seven years older the day after his marriage.

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; and who wanteth the one, will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope, to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by depressing another's fortune.

A man that is young in years may be old in hours if he have lost no time.

A man were better relate himself to a statue or picture than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother.

A man who contemplates revenge keeps his wounds green.

A much talking judge is an ill-tuned cymbal.

An artist must learn to be nourished by his passions and by his despairs.

And as for Mixed Mathematics, I may only make this prediction, that there cannot fail to be more kinds of them, as nature grows further disclosed.

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness; as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns; children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware, that they carry their anger rather with scorn, than with fear; so that they may seem rather to be above the injury, than below it; which is a thing easily done, if a man will give law to himself in it.

An illustrational form tells you through the intelligence immediately what the form is about, whereas a non-illustrational form works first upon sensation and then slowly leaks back into the fact.

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.

Another error is an impatience of doubt and haste to assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment. For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients; the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation; if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was said, tanquam tabula naufragii: when industrious persons, by an exact and scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books that concern not story, and the like, do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time.

A picture should be a re-creation of an event rather than an illustration of an object; but there is no tension in the picture unless there is a struggle with the object.

A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fullness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

Aristotle... a mere bond-servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious and well nigh useless.

Art is man added to Nature.

As is the garden such is the gardener. A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds.

Ask counsel of both timesof the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.

As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.

A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.

As you work, the mood grows on you. There are certain images which suddenly get hold of me and I really want to do them. But it's true to say that the excitement and possibilities are in the working and obviously can only come in the working.

Atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man.

Atheism leads a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue.