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Francis Bacon: 590 quotes26 likes

“Touching the secrets of the heart and the successions of time, doth make a just and sound difference between the manner of the exposition of the Scriptures and all other books. For it is an excellent observation which hath been made upon the answers of our Saviour Christ to many of the questions which were propounded to Him, how that they are impertinent to the state of the question demanded: the reason whereof is, because not being like man, which knows man’s thoughts by his words, but knowing man’s thoughts immediately, He never answered their words, but their thoughts. Much in the like manner it is with the Scriptures, which being written to the thoughts of men, and to the succession of all ages, with a foresight of all heresies, contradictions, differing estates of the Church, yea, and particularly of the elect, are not to be interpreted only according to the latitude of the proper sense of the place, and respectively towards that present occasion whereupon the words were uttered, or in precise congruity or contexture with the words before or after, or in contemplation of the principal scope of the place; but have in themselves, not only totally or collectively, but distributively in clauses and words, infinite springs and streams of doctrine to water the Church in every part. And therefore as the literal sense is, as it were, the main stream or river, so the moral sense chiefly, and sometimes the allegorical or typical, are they whereof the Church hath most use; not that I wish men to be bold in allegories, or indulgent or light in allusions: but that I do much condemn that interpretation of the Scripture which is only after the manner as men use to interpret a profane book.”

Francis Bacon book The Advancement of Learning

XXV. (17)
The Advancement of Learning (1605)

“I bequeath my soul to God… My body to be buried obscurely. For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next age.”

His will (1626)

“Lastly, there are Idols which have immigrated into men's minds from the various dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call Idols of the Theater, because in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion.”

Francis Bacon book Novum Organum

Aphorism 44
Novum Organum (1620), Book I

“You shall have atheists strive to get disciples, as it fareth with other sects. And, which is most of all, you shall have of them, that will suffer for atheism, and not recant; whereas if they did truly think, that there were no such thing as God, why should they trouble themselves?”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Atheism
Essays (1625)

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Gardens
Essays (1625)

“Boldness is ever blind; for it seeth not dangers and inconveniences.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Boldness
Essays (1625)

“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.”

Francis Bacon book Novum Organum

Aphorism 47
Novum Organum (1620), Book I

“"You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God" This canon is the mother of all canons against heresy; the causes of error are two; the ignorance of the will of God, and the ignorance or not sufficient consideration of his power.”

Of Heresies
Meditationes sacræ (1597)

“Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Marriage and Single Life
Essays (1625)

“Seeming wise men may make shift to get opinion; but let no man choose them for employment; for certainly you were better take for business, a man somewhat absurd, than over-formal.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Seeming Wise
Essays (1625)

“But the best demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual experiment.”

Francis Bacon book Novum Organum

Aphorism 70
Novum Organum (1620), Book I

“Cleanness of body was ever deemed to proceed from a due reverence to God.”

Francis Bacon book The Advancement of Learning

Book II
The Advancement of Learning (1605)

“Come home to men's business and bosoms.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Dedication to the Essays (edition 1625)
Essays (1625)

“He that defers his charity 'till he is dead, is (if a man weighs it rightly) rather liberal of another man's, than of his own.”

Ornamenta Rationalia http://books.google.com/books?id=VHNUAAAAYAAJ&q="He+that+defers+his+charity+'till+he+is+dead+is+if+a+man+weighs+it"+"rather+liberal+of+another+man's+than+of+his+own"&pg=PA298#v=onepage #55

“Do not wonder, if the common people speak more truly than those of high rank; for they speak with more safety.”
Ne mireris, si vulgus verius loquatur quam honoratiores; quia etiam tutius loquitur.

Exempla Antithetorum, IX. Laus, Existimatio (Pro.) http://books.google.com/books?id=C9cQAAAAYAAJ&q=&quot;Ne+mireris+si+vulgus+verius+loquatur+quam+honoratiores+quia+etiam+tutius+loquitur&quot;&pg=PA692#v=onepage

“Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.”

Proposition touching Amendment of Laws
Resuscitatio (1657)

“Hurl your calumnies boldly; something is sure to stick.”
Audacter calumniare, semper aliquid haeret.

De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623)

“And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Gardens
Essays (1625)

“Knowledge, that tendeth but to satisfaction, is but as a courtesan, which is for pleasure, and not for fruit or generation.”

Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature (ca. 1603) Works, Vol. 1, p. 83; The Works of Francis Bacon (1819) p. 133, https://books.google.com/books?id=xgE9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA133 Vol. 2

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Marriage and Single Life
Essays (1625)