English philosopher (1561-1626)
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
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
Seek first the virtues of the mind; and other things either will come, or will not be wanted.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it.
FRANCIS BACON
Advancement of Learning
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Nobility of birth commonly abateth industry.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Riches are for spending.
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
As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
All colours will agree in the dark.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Knowledge is power.
FRANCIS BACON
Meditationes Sacrae
Silence is the virtue of fools.
FRANCIS BACON
De Augmentis Scientiarum
God Almighty first planted a garden; and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.
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
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.
FRANCIS BACON
Advancement of Learning