Francis Bacon quotes - page 5

Riches are for spending. (Francis Bacon)
But the best demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual experiment. View quote
Francis Bacon
Aristotle... a mere bond-servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious and well nigh useless. View quote
Francis Bacon
There is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals. View quote
Francis Bacon
Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it. View quote
Francis Bacon
This same Truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the world half so stately and daintily as candle lights. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Francis Bacon
The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded. View quote
Francis Bacon
There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise. View quote
Francis Bacon
A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he has lost no time. (Francis Bacon)
It is a good point of cunning for a man to shape the answer he would have in his own words and propositions, for it makes the other party stick the less. View quote
Francis Bacon
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. View quote
Francis Bacon
He that hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune. View quote
Francis Bacon
The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other. View quote
Francis Bacon
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. View quote
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. View quote
Francis Bacon
It is a strange desire, to seek power and to lose liberty. View quote
Francis Bacon
When you wander, as you often delight to do, you wander indeed, and give never such satisfaction as the curious time requires. This is not caused by any natural defect, but first for want of election, when you, having a large and fruitful mind, should not so much labour what to speak as to find what to leave unspoken. Rich soils are often to be weeded. View quote
Francis Bacon
For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself. View quote
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)
But by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this - that men despair and think things impossible. View quote
Francis Bacon
Vain-glorious men are the scorn of the wise, the admiration of fools, the idols of paradise, and the slaves of their own vaunts. View quote
Francis Bacon
Like strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones. View quote
Francis Bacon
Cato said the best way to keep good acts in memory was to refresh them with new. View quote
Francis Bacon