English philosopher (1561-1626)
A man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that, if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Riches are for spending.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection.
FRANCIS BACON
Advancement of Learning
Knowledge is power.
FRANCIS BACON
Meditationes Sacrae
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
FRANCIS BACON
Apothegms
God Almighty first planted a garden; and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.
FRANCIS BACON
Advancement of Learning
Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
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.
FRANCIS BACON
Advancement of Learning
Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said) more professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the labour having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progression.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
The works or acts of merit towards learning are conversant about three objects—the places of learning, the books of learning, and the persons of the learned. For as water, whether it be the dew of heaven or the springs of the earth, doth scatter and leese itself in the ground, except it be collected into some receptacle where it may by union comfort and sustain itself; and for that cause the industry of man hath made and framed springheads, conduits, cisterns, and pools, which men have accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn with accomplishments of magnificence and state, as well as of use and necessity; so this excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descend from divine inspiration, or spring from human sense, would soon perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were not preserved in books, traditions, conferences, and places appointed, as universities, colleges, and schools, for the receipt and comforting of the same.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
To proceed, to that which is next in order from God, to spirits: we find, as far as credit is to be given to the celestial hierarchy of that supposed Dionysius, the senator of Athens, the first place or degree is given to the angels of love, which are termed seraphim; the second to the angels of light, which are termed cherubim; and the third, and so following places, to thrones, principalities, and the rest, which are all angels of power and ministry; so as this angels of knowledge and illumination are placed before the angels of office and domination.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning