Francis Bacon Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Francis Bacon.
Famous Quotes By 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
Let the mind be enlarged ... to the grandeur of the mysteries, and not the mysteries contracted to the narrowness of the mind — Francis Bacon
Men are rather beholden ... generally to chance or anything else, than to logic, for the invention of arts and sciences. — 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
Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory. — Francis Bacon
If a man's wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores, splitters of hairs. — Francis Bacon
The noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men, which have sought to express the image of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed. So the care of posterity is most in them that they have no posterity. — Francis Bacon
Whoseoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god. Certain it is that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment. — Francis Bacon
Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied. — Francis Bacon
The light that a man receives by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which comes from his own understanding and judgment, which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs. — Francis Bacon
The human understanding, when any preposition has been once laid down ... forces everything else to add fresh support and confirmation; and although more cogent and abundant instances may exist to the contrary, yet it either does not observe them or it despises them, or it gets rid of and rejects them by some distinction, with violent and injurious prejudice, rather than sacrifice the authority of its first conclusions. — Francis Bacon
The universe must not be narrowed down to the limit of our understanding, but our understanding must be stretched and enlarged to take in the image of the universe as it is discovered. — Francis Bacon
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
Man, as the minister and interpreter of nature, is limited in act and understanding by his observation of the order of nature; neither his understanding nor his power extends further. — Francis Bacon
We see then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands. For have not some books continued twenty-five hundred years or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, and cities have been decayed and demolished? — Francis Bacon
Let every student of nature take this as a rule,
that whatever his mind seizes and dwells upon with peculiar satisfaction is to be held in suspicion. — Francis Bacon
Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or thought of the course of nature; beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything. — Francis Bacon
For whatever deserves to exist deserves also to be known, for knowledge is the image of existence, and things mean and splendid exist alike. — Francis Bacon
The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, in Apollo, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man's body and reduce it to harmony. — Francis Bacon
Where a man cannot fitly play his own part; if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage. — Francis Bacon
Men suppose their reason has command over their words; still it happens that words in return exercise authority on reason — Francis Bacon
Praise from the common people is generally false, and rather follows the vain than the virtuous. — Francis Bacon
It is a secret both in nature and state, that it is safer to change many things than one. — Francis Bacon
I feel ever so strongly that an artist must be nourished by his passions and his despairs. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him. The feelings of desperation and unhappiness are more useful to an artist than the feeling of contentment, because desperation and unhappiness stretch your whole sensibility. — Francis Bacon
There is a cunning which we in England call "the turning of the cat" in the pan; which is, when that which a man says to another, he says it as if another had said it to him. — Francis Bacon
And yet surely to alchemy this right is due, that it may be compared to the husbandman whereof Aesop makes the fable, that when he died he told his sons that he had left unto them gold buried under the ground in his vineyard: and they digged over the ground, gold they found none, but by reason of their stirring and digging the mould about the roots of their vines, they had a great vintage the year following: so assuredly the search and stir to make gold hath brought to light a great number of good and fruitful inventions and experiments, as well for the disclosing of nature as for the use of man's life. — Francis Bacon
I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am. — Francis Bacon
He that cannot possibly mend his own case will do what he can to impair another's. — Francis Bacon
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. — Francis Bacon
My painting is not violent, it's life that is violent. Even within the most beautiful landscape, in the trees, under the leaves, the insects are eating each other; violence is a part of life. We are born with a scream; we come into life with a scream and maybe love is a mosquito net between the fear of living and the fear of death. — Francis Bacon
So if any man think philosophy and universality to be idle studies, he doth not consider that all professions are from thence served and supplied. And this I take to be a great cause that hath hindered the progression of learning, because these fundamental knowledges have been studied but in passage. — Francis Bacon
None of the affections have been noted to fascinate and bewitch but envy. — Francis Bacon
To know truly is to know by causes. — Francis Bacon
Certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. — Francis Bacon
Riches are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions; therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion. — Francis Bacon
The nature of things betrays itself more readily under the vexations of art than in its natural freedom. — Francis Bacon
The Idols of Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions as well of the sense as of the mind are according to the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it. — Francis Bacon
Photographs are not only points of reference ... they're often triggers of ideas. — Francis Bacon
But this is that which will dignify and exalt knowledge: if contemplation and action be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than they have been: a conjunction like unto that of the highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action. — Francis Bacon
The images of men's wit and knowledge remain in books, exempted from the worry of time and capable of perpetual renovation. — 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
We gave ourselves for lost men, and prepared for death. Yet we did lift up our hearts and voices to God above, who "showeth His wonders in the deep". — Francis Bacon
I should have been, I don't know, a con-man, a robber or a prostitute. But it was vanity that made me choose painting, vanity and chance. — Francis Bacon
We cannot command Nature except by obeying her. — Francis Bacon
Virtue is like precious odours, more fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. — Francis Bacon
He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator. — Francis Bacon
The only really interesting thing is
what happens between two people in a room. — Francis Bacon
States, as great engines, move slowly. — Francis Bacon
The mystery lies in the irrationality by which you make appearance - if it is not irrational, you make illustration. — Francis Bacon
So that every wand or staff of empire is forsooth curved at top. — Francis Bacon
There was never law, or sect, or opinion did so much magnify goodness, as the Christian religion doth. — Francis Bacon
A much talking judge is an ill-tuned cymbal. — Francis Bacon
A just fear of an imminent danger, though be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war. — Francis Bacon
For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced. — Francis Bacon
Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest shall be provided or its loss shall not be felt. — Francis Bacon
It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear. — Francis Bacon
Religion brought forth riches, and the daughter devoured the mother. — Francis Bacon
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. — Francis Bacon
Salomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion. — Francis Bacon
There is another ground of hope that must not be omitted. Let men but think over their infinite expenditure of understanding, time, and means on matters and pursuits of far less use and value; whereof, if but a small part were directed to sound and solid studies, there is no difficulty that might not be overcome. — Francis Bacon
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. — Francis Bacon
To spend too much time in them [studying] is sloth, to use them too much for ornament is affectation, to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor* of a scholar ... . — Francis Bacon
Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use. — Francis Bacon
I think of myself as a kind of pulverizing machine into which everything I look at and feel is fed. I believe that I am different from the mixed-media jackdaws who use photographs etc. more or less literally. — Francis Bacon
The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate. — Francis Bacon
Certainly, 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
The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. — Francis Bacon
All good moral philosophy is ... but the handmaid to religion. — Francis Bacon
He of whom many are afraid ought to fear many. — Francis Bacon
The true atheist is he whose hands are cauterized by holy things. — Francis Bacon
Existence is in a way so banal, you may as well try and make a kind of grandeur of it — Francis Bacon
By this means we presume we have established for ever, a true and legitimate marriage between the Empirical and Rational faculty; whose fastidious and unfortunate divorce and separation hath troubled and disordered the whole race and generation of mankind. — Francis Bacon
We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do. — Francis Bacon
The worst men often give the best advice. — Francis Bacon
The worst solitute is to be destitute of true friendship. — Francis Bacon
In revenge a man is but even with his enemy; for it is a princely thing to pardon, and Solomon saith it is the glory of a man to pass over a transgression. — Francis Bacon
Great art is always a way of concentrating, reinventing what is called fact, what we know of our existence- a reconcentration ... tearing away the veils, the attitudes people acquire of their time and earlier time. Really good artists tear down those veils — Francis Bacon
More dangers have deceived men than forced them. — Francis Bacon
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. — 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
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. — Francis Bacon
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgement and execution of business. — Francis Bacon
It would be 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
Men ought to find the difference between saltiness and bitterness. Certainly, he that hath a satirical vein, as he maketh others afraid of his wit, so he had need be afraid of others' memory. — Francis Bacon
The serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself. — Francis Bacon
Truth can never be reached by just listening to the voice of an authority. — Francis Bacon
Base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark. — Francis Bacon