A bachelor's life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.
– Francis Bacon
A good conscience is a continual feast.
– Francis Bacon
A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it.
– Francis Bacon
A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.
– Francis Bacon
A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
– Francis Bacon
A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.
– Francis Bacon
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
– Francis Bacon
Acorns were good until bread was found.
– Francis Bacon
All colors will agree in the dark.
– Francis Bacon
All rising to great place is by a winding stair.
– Francis Bacon
Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the
shipwreck of time.
– Francis Bacon
As for the passions and studies of the mind; avoid envy; anxious fears; anger fretting
inwards; subtle and knotty inquisitions; joys and exhilarations in excess; sadness not
communicated.
– Francis Bacon, Essays, Civil and Moral, XXX, "Of Regiment of Health"
As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which
are the births of time.
– Francis Bacon
Atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man.
– Francis Bacon
Be not penny-wise. Riches have wings. Sometimes they fly away of themselves, and sometimes
they must be set flying to bring in more.
– Francis Bacon
Be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others.
– Francis Bacon
Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.
– Francis Bacon
Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in
council though good in execution.
– Francis Bacon
Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.
– Francis Bacon, "Proposition
touching Amendment of Laws"
But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from
the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation.
– Francis Bacon,
Advancement of Learning (book I, Advantages of Learning)
By far the best proof is experience.
– Francis Bacon
By indignities men come to dignities.
– Francis Bacon
Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the
unmarried, or childless men.
– Francis Bacon
Come home to men's business and bosoms.
– Francis Bacon, Essays
(dedication of 9th Edition)
Consistency is the foundation of virtue.
– Francis Bacon
Cure the disease and kill the patient.
– Francis Bacon
Cure the disease and kill the patient.
– Francis Bacon
Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.
– Francis Bacon
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.
– Francis Bacon
Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty
and solid.
– Francis Bacon
For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling
cymbal, where there is no love.
– Francis Bacon
For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an
impression of pleasure in itself.
– Francis Bacon
For cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to
God, to society, and to ourselves.
– Francis Bacon
For it is esteemed a kind of dishonour unto learning to descend to inquiry or meditation upon
matters mechanical, except they be such as may be thought secrets, rarities, and special
subtilities, which humour of vain supercilious arrogancy is justly derided in Plato... But the
truth is, they be not the highest instances that give the securest information; as may well be
expressed in the tale ... of the philosopher, that while he gazed upwards to the stars fell into
the water; for if he had looked down he might have seen the stars in the water, but looking
aloft he could not see the water in the stars. So it cometh often to pass, that mean and
small things discover great, better than great can discover the small.
– Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, pages 71-72. (1973)
For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocence, except men know
exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility
and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for
without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.
– Francis Bacon
For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the
next ages.
– Francis Bacon
Fortune hath somewhat the nature of a woman; if she be too much wooed, she is
the farther off.
– Francis Bacon
Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.
– Francis Bacon
God almighty first planted a garden: and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasure.
– Francis Bacon
God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.
– Francis Bacon
God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of
the grave.
– Francis Bacon
God's first creature, which was light.
– Francis Bacon
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.
– Francis Bacon
He of whom many are afraid ought to fear many.
– Francis Bacon
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.
– Francis Bacon
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to
great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
– Francis Bacon
He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest
innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not
alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
– Francis Bacon
Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep;
moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.
– Francis Bacon
Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper.
– Francis Bacon
Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before
uniformity.
– Francis Bacon, Essays, "Of Building" (1623)
I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
– Francis Bacon
I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than
that this universal frame is without a Mind.
– Francis Bacon
I have taken all knowledge to be my province.
– Francis Bacon
I hold every man a debtor to his profession.
– Francis Bacon
I think of life as meaningless, but we give it meaning during our own existence.
– Francis Bacon
I would live to study, and not study to live.
– Francis Bacon
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.
– Francis Bacon
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. (1605)
– Francis Bacon
If money be not they 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.
– Francis Bacon
see Italian proverb
If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin with doubts, and are
patient in them, we shall end in certainties.
– Francis Bacon (1605)
If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us.
– Francis Bacon
Ill Fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived not.
– Francis Bacon
Imagination was given man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console
him for what he is.
– Francis Bacon
In charity there is no excess.
– Francis Bacon
In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and
which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.
– Francis Bacon
In taking revenge a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is
superior, for it is a prince's part to pardon.
– Francis Bacon, Essays (1625)
In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow the name
of the world; as to say, "The world says," or "There is a speech abroad."
– Francis Bacon, Essays, "Of Cunning" (1623)
[It has been well said that] the arch-flatterer with whom all the petty
flatterers have intelligence is a man's self.
– Francis Bacon, quoted in Essays
It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.
– Francis Bacon
It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tost upon the sea: a pleasure to
stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no
pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage ground of truth ... and to see the errors,
and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below.
– Francis Bacon
It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and
to lose power over a man's self.
– Francis Bacon
It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.
– Francis Bacon
It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful
as the other.
– Francis Bacon
It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the
counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of
every man's judgment.
– Francis Bacon
It was prettily devised of Aesop, "The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel
and said, what dust do I raise!"
– Francis Bacon
Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture
than that of laws.
– Francis Bacon
Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised
than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.
– Francis Bacon
Knowledge is power.
Latin: Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.
– Francis Bacon: 12 Meditationes Sacrae De Haeresibus.
Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.
– Francis Bacon
Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.
– Francis Bacon
see
Publilius Syrus
and Albert Einstein
Little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and
faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.
– Francis Bacon
Look to make your course regular, that men may know beforehand what they may expect.
– Francis Bacon
Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it
offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled. Mahomet called the
hill to come to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still he was never a whit abashed,
but said, "If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill."
– Francis Bacon, "Of Boldness"
Man seeketh in society comfort, use and protection.
– Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning (1605)
Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.
– Francis Bacon
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is
increased with tales, so is the other.
– Francis Bacon
Men in great place are thrice servants, – servants of the sovereign or state, servants of
fame, and servants of business.
– Francis Bacon, "Of Great Place"
Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent
too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content
themselves with a mediocrity of success.
– Francis Bacon, Essay XLII, "Of
Youth and Age"
Men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to
familiarize themselves with facts.
– Francis Bacon
Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
– Francis Bacon
Mysteries are due to secrecy.
– Francis Bacon
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. Therefore set it down: That a habit of
secrecy is both politic and moral.
– Francis Bacon
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.
– Francis Bacon
Nature is commanded by obeying her.
– Francis Bacon
Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.
– Francis Bacon
Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.
– Francis Bacon
No man's fortune can be an end worthy of his being.
– Francis Bacon
No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
– Francis Bacon, "Of Truth"
None of the affections have been noted to fascinate and bewitch but envy.
– Francis Bacon
Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched
too far and relaxed too much.
– Francis Bacon
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
– Francis Bacon
Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.
– Francis Bacon
Nuptial love makes mankind; friendly love perfects it; but wanton love corrupts and debases
it.
– Francis Bacon
Of great wealth there is no real use, except in its distribution, the rest is just conceit.
– Francis Bacon
Opportunity makes a thief.
– Francis Bacon
Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.
– Francis Bacon
People of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon and
seldom drive business home to its conclusion, but content themselves with a mediocrity of
success.
– Francis Bacon
People of great position are servants times three, servants of their country, servants of
fame, and servants of business.
– Francis Bacon
People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and
ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.
– Francis Bacon
Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.
– Francis Bacon
Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and
hopes.
– Francis Bacon
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.
– Francis Bacon
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk
and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
– Francis Bacon
Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.
– Francis Bacon
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law
to weed it out.
– Francis Bacon
Riches are for spending.
– Francis Bacon
Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss
will not be felt.
– Francis Bacon
Silence is the virtue of fools.
– Francis Bacon
Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.
– Francis Bacon
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be
chewed and digested.
– Francis Bacon, Essay, "Of Studies"
States as great engines move slowly.
– Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning,
Book ii (1605)
Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner.
– Francis Bacon
Suspicion amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they never fly by twilight.
– Francis Bacon
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.
– Francis Bacon
That things are changed, and that nothing really perishes, and that the sum of matter remains
exactly the same, is sufficiently certain.
– Francis Bacon
The best armor is to keep out of gunshot.
– Francis Bacon
The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.
– Francis Bacon
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess
caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess, neither can angel or man come in danger
by it.
– Francis Bacon, Essay, "On Goodness"
The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.
– Francis Bacon
The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are.
– Francis Bacon
The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs.
– Francis Bacon
The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three. First to lay asleep
opposition and to surprise. For where a man's intentions are published, it is an alarum to call
up all that are against them. The second is to reserve a man's self a fair retreat: for if a
man engage himself, by a manifest declaration, he must go through, or take a fall. The third is,
the better to discover the mind of another. For to him that opens himself, men will hardly show
themselves adverse; but will fair let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to freedom of
thought.
– Francis Bacon
The joys of parents are secret, and so are their grieves and fears.
– Francis Bacon
The laws of the most kingdoms and states have been like buildings of many
pieces, and patched up from time to time according to occasion, without frame or
model. ... This continual heaping up of laws without digesting them maketh but a
chaos and confusion, and turneth the laws many times to become but snares for
the people. ... Then look into the state of your laws and justice of your land:
purge out multiplicity of laws: clear the incertainty of them: repeal those that
are snaring; and press the execution of those that are wholesome and necessary ...
– Francis Bacon
The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble
spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course: it
gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but transforms and digests it by
a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy (science); for it neither
relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it take the matter which it gathers
from natural history and mechanical experiments and lay up in the memory whole, as it finds it,
but lays it up in the understanding altered and disgested. Therefore, from a closer and purer
league between these two faculties, the experimental and the rational (such as has never been
made), much may be hoped.
– Francis Bacon, Novum Organum
The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.
– Francis Bacon
The mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.
– Francis Bacon
The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the
felicities of Solomon.
– Francis Bacon
The person is a poor judge who by an action can be disgraced more in failing than they can
be honored in succeeding.
– Francis Bacon
The place of justice is a hallowed place.
– Francis Bacon
The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to
tune the curious harp of man's body.
– Francis Bacon
The remedy is worse than the disease.
– Francis Bacon, "Of Seditions"
see Publius Syrus
The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and
understanding.
– Francis Bacon
The wisdom of our ancestors.
– Francis Bacon
The World's a bubble, and the Life of Man Less than a span.
– Francis Bacon, "The World"
The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.
– Francis Bacon
There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man
is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.
– Francis Bacon
There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth
himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such
flatterer as is a man's self.
– Francis Bacon
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
– Francis Bacon, "Of Beauty"
There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little.
– Francis Bacon
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
– Francis Bacon
They that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.
– Francis Bacon
This communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects for it
redoubleth joy, and cutteth griefs in half.
– Francis Bacon
This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise
would heal and do well.
– Francis Bacon
Time is the measure of business.
– Francis Bacon
To be free minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one
of the best precepts of long lasting.
– Francis Bacon, Essays, Civil and Moral, XXX, "Of Regiment of Health"
To choose time is to save time.
– Francis Bacon
Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He
that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school,
and not to travel.
– Francis Bacon, "Of Travel"
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion.
– Francis Bacon
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.
– Francis Bacon
Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
– Francis Bacon
Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
– Francis Bacon, "Of Beauty"
We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought
to do.
– Francis Bacon
What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.
– Francis Bacon
What then remains but that we still should cry
For being born, and, being born, to die?
– Francis Bacon, paraphrase of a Greek epigram, in "The World"
Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.
– Francis Bacon
Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.
– Francis Bacon
Who then to frail mortality shall trust
But limns on water, or but writes in dust.
– Francis Bacon, "The World"
Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
– Francis Bacon
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.
– Francis Bacon
Wives are young men's mistresses; companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.
– Francis Bacon, "Of Marriage and Single Life"
Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most
valuable.
– Francis Bacon
Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and
more fit for new projects than for settled business.
– Francis Bacon, "Of Youth and
Age"
