Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Quotes by Sir Francis Bacon

“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

“By far the best proof is experience.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

“Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

“Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

“Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

“Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

“He of whom many are afraid ought to fear many.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

“Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

“I have taken all knowledge to be my province.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

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

“Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

“Praise from the common people is generally false, and rather follows the vain than the virtuous.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

“Read not to contradict and confute, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.” -Sir Francis Bacon

“Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

“Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

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

“Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

“Silence is the virtue of fools.”
-Sir 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.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

“The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

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

“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”
-Sir Francis Bacon, "Of Beauty"

“Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.”
-Sir Francis Bacon, "Of Death"

“Houses are built to live in, not to look on; therefore, let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had.”
-Sir Francis Bacon, Essays: Of Building, 1623

“Knowledge is power.”
-Sir Francis Bacon, Meditationes Sacræ. De Hæresibus. (1597)

“In charity there is no excess.”
-Sir Francis Bacon, Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature (1625)

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