Francis Bacon: Man

Francis Bacon was English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author. Explore interesting quotes on man.

Francis Bacon: 590 quotes26 likes

“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

“For I find that even those that have sought knowledge for itself and not for benefit, or ostentation, or any practical enablement in the course of their life, have nevertheless propounded to themselves a wrong mark, namely, satisfaction, which men call truth, and not operation. For as in the courts and services of princes and states, it is a much easier matter to give satisfaction than to do the business; so in the inquiring of causes and reasons it is much easier to find out such causes as will satisfy the mind of man, and quiet objections, than such causes as will direct him and give him light to new experiences and inventions.”

Source: Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature (ca. 1603) Works, Vol. 1; The Works of Francis Bacon (1857) p. 232, https://books.google.com/books?id=HloJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA232 Vol. 3.

“It is yet a higher speech of his than the other, “It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.””

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Adversity
Essays (1625)

“For there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself, as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, That it is impossible to love, and to be wise.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Love
Essays (1625)

“The greatest trust, between man and man, is the trust of giving counsel. For in other confidences, men commit the parts of life; their lands, their goods, their children, their credit, some particular affair; but to such as they make their counsellors, they commit the whole: by how much the more, they are obliged to all faith and integrity.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Counsel
Essays (1625)

“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.”

Francis Bacon book Novum Organum

Aphorism 1
Novum Organum (1620), Book I

“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.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Essays (1625)

“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.”

Francis Bacon book The Advancement of Learning

Book II, xxiii
The Advancement of Learning (1605)

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

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Revenge
Essays (1625)

“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.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Regimen of Health
Essays (1625)

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

The World (1629)

“They that deny a God destroy a man’s nobility, for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Atheism
Essays (1625)

“This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal, and do well.... vindictive persons live the life of witches; who, as they are mischievous, so end they infortunate...”

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1857), Revenge

“In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not look to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.”

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Negotiating

“But yet he was reputed one of the wise men, that made answer to the question, when a man should marry,—A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.”

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Marriage and Single Life

“The perpetuity by generation is common to beasts; but memory, merit, and noble works, are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men; which have sought to express the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed.”

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Parents and Children

“This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal, and do well.”

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Revenge

“But, 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.—Extinctus amabitur idem.”

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Death

“Credulity in arts and opinions... is likewise of two kinds viz., when men give too much belief to arts themselves, or to certain authors in any art. The sciences that sway the imagination more than the reason are principally three viz., astrology, natural magic, and alchemy... Alchemy may be compared to the man who told his sons that he had left them gold, buried somewhere in his vineyard; while they by digging found no gold, but by turning up the mould about the roots of the vines procured a plentiful vintage. So the search and endeavours to make gold have brought many useful inventions to light.”

Source: De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623) as quoted by Edward Thorpe, History of Chemistry, Vol. 1, p. 43.

“There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.”