English philosopher (1561-1626)
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
"Of Studies," Essays
No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Truth," Essays
Fortune is like the market, where many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Delays," Essays
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.
FRANCIS BACON
Novum Organum
Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Seditions and Troubles," Essays
A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Death hath this also; that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
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
Good thoughts, though God accept them, yet towards men are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Nothing doth so much keep men out of the Church, and drive men out of the Church, as breach of unity.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
A man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that, if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress.
FRANCIS BACON
De Augmentis Scientiarum
Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
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
Essays
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Goodness and Goodness in Nature," Essays
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
Essays
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
Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays