Francis Bacon: Trending quotes (page 12)

“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 in thought of the course of nature. Beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.”

“It is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs.”

“Certain Laodiceans, and lukewarm persons, think they may accommodate points of religion, by middle way, and taking part of both, and witty reconcilements; as if they would make an arbitrament between God and man. Both these extremes are to be avoided; which will be done, if the league of Christians, penned by our Savior himself, were in two cross clauses thereof, soundly and plainly expounded: He that is not with us, is against us; and again, He that is not against us, is with us; that is, if the points fundamental and of substance in religion, were truly discerned and distinguished, from points not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention.”

“For man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection: and they be three wisdoms of divers natures, which do often sever: wisdom of the behaviour, wisdom of business, and wisdom of state.”

“Sir Henry Wotton used to say that critics are like brushers of noblemen's clothes.”

“Virtue is like a rich stone — best plain set.”

“Cure the disease and kill the patient.”

“Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.”

“A good name is like a precious ointment; it filleth all around about, and will not easily away; for the odors of ointments are more durable than those of flowers.”

“There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic. A man's own observation, what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health.”

“Vindictive persons live the life of witches; who, as they are mischievous, so end they infortunate.”

“Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences; for there is no worse torture than the torture of laws. Specially in case of laws penal, they ought to have care that that which was meant for terror be not tuned into rigour; and that they bring not upon the people that shower whereof the Scripture speaketh, Pluet super eos laqueos: for penal laws pressed are a shower of snares upon the people.”

“Sir Amice Pawlet, when he saw too much haste made in any matter, was wont to say. "Stay a while, that we may make an end the sooner."”

“The sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before.”

“It is not possible to run a course aright when the goal itself has not been rightly placed.”

“Lucid intervals and happy pauses.”

“For the inquisition of Final Causes is barren, and like a virgin consecrated to God produces nothing.”

“The world's a bubble, and the life of man
Less than a span.”

“My Lord St. Albans said that Nature did never put her precious jewels into a garret four stories high, and therefore that exceeding tall men had ever very empty heads.”