Francis Bacon Quotes

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“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.”

“Knowledge itself is power.”
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.

“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.”

“In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.”

“Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends”

“The less people speak of their greatness, the more we think of it.”

“If we are to achieve things never before accomplished we must employ methods never before attempted”

“God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation.”

“There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.”

“Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.”

“Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.”

“The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.”

“the serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself.”

“Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.”

“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.”

“The only really interesting thing is
what happens between two people in a room.”

“The worst solitute is to be destitute of true friendship.”

“Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.”

“Great boldness is seldom without some absurdity.”

“Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.”

“The remedy is worse than the disease.”

“A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.”

“A man that is young in years may be old in hours if he have lost no time.”

“Silence is the virtue of a fool.”

“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.”

“Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.”

“He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.”

“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.”

“By far the best proof is experience.”

“The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.”

“There Are But Two Tragedies in Life-One is One's Inability to attain One's Heart's Desire-The Other Is To Have It!”

“It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.”

“We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.”

“Costly followers are not to be liked; lest while a man maketh his train longer, he make his wings shorter.”

“Cosmus, Duke of Florence, was wont to say of perfidious friends, that "We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends."”

“It is not the pleasure of curiosity, nor the quiet of resolution, nor the raising of the spirit, nor victory of wit, nor faculty of speech … that are the true ends of knowledge … but it is a restitution and reinvesting, in great part, of man to the sovereignty and power, for whensoever he shall be able to call the creatures by their true names, he shall again command them.”

“In the same manner as we are cautioned by religion to show our faith by our works we may very properly apply the principle to philosophy, and judge of it by its works; accounting that to be futile which is unproductive, and still more so, if instead of grapes and olives it yield but the thistle and thorns of dispute and contention.”

“Men's thoughts, are much according to their inclination; their discourse and speeches, according to their learning and infused opinions; but their deeds, are after as they have been accustomed.”

“Judges ought to remember, that their office is jus dicere, and not jus dare; to interpret law, and not to make law, or give law.”

“It is a strange desire, to seek power and to lose liberty.”

“Who then to frail mortality shall trust
But limns the water, or but writes in dust.”

“The greatness of an estate, in bulk and territory, doth fall under measure; and the greatness of finances and revenue, doth fall under computation. The population may appear by musters; and the number and greatness of cities and towns by cards and maps. But yet there is not any thing amongst civil affairs more subject to error, than the right valuation and true judgment concerning the power and forces of an estate.”

“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.”

“Nature is often hidden; sometimes overcome; seldom extinguished.”

“If thou shalt aspire after the glorious acts of men, thy working shall be accompanied with compunction and strife, and thy remembrance followed with distaste and upbraidings; and justly doth it come to pass towards thee, O man, that since thou, which art God's work, doest him no reason in yielding him well-pleasing service, even thine own works also should reward thee with the like fruit of bitterness.”

“In charity there is no excess.”

“As we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of causes, and productions of effects: so that part which concerneth the inquiry of causes we do subdivide according to the received and sound division of causes. The one part, which is physic, inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes; and the other, which is metaphysic, handleth the formal and final causes.”

“No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.”

“Above all, every relation must be considered as suspicious, which depends in any degree upon religion, as the prodigies of Livy: And no less so, everything that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors, who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for falsehood and fable.”