Francis Bacon Quotes

The more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxicateth. ~ Francis Bacon

For many parts of Nature can neither be invented with sufficient subtlety, nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity, nor accommodated unto use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and intervening of the mathematics, of which sort are perspective, music, astronomy, cosmography, architecture, engineery, and divers others. ~ Francis Bacon

The natures and dispositions of men are, not without truth, distinguished from the predominance of the planets. ~ Francis Bacon

Art is man added to Nature. ~ Francis Bacon

Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread. ~ Francis Bacon

Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true. ~ Francis Bacon

The noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men, which have sought to express the image of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed. So the care of posterity is most in them that they have no posterity. ~ Francis Bacon

Hope is the most beneficial of all the affections, and doth much to the prolongation of life ... ~ Francis Bacon

A man cannot speak to his son, but as a father; to his wife, but as a husband; to his enemy, but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak, as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person. ~ Francis Bacon

I remember when you used to have your profession on your passport and I always thought that being a painter was the best one to be, because my heroes were Goya and Francis Bacon. ~ Damien Hirst

People often seem surprised that I choose to write science fiction and fantasy - I think they expect a history professor to write historical fiction, or literary fiction, associating academia with the kinds of novels that academic lit critics prefer. But I feel that speculative fiction, especially science fiction and fantasy, is a lot more like the pre-modern literature I spend most of my time studying than most modern literature is. Ursula Le Guin has described speculative fiction authors as "realists of a larger reality" because we imagine other ways of being, alternatives to how people live now, different worlds, and raise questions about hope and change and possibilities that different worlds contain.

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Writing for a more distant audience, authors tended to be speculative, using exotic perspectives, fantastic creatures, imaginary lands, allegories, prophecies, stories within stories, techniques which, like science fiction and fantasy, use alternatives rather than one reality in order to ask questions, not about the way things are, but about plural ways things have been and could be. Such works have an empathy across time, expecting and welcoming an audience as alien as the other worlds that they describe. When I read Voltaire responding to Francis Bacon, responding to Petrarch, responding to Boethius, responding to Seneca, responding to Plutarch, I want to respond to them too, to pass it on. So it makes sense to me to answer in the genre people ha ~ Ada Palmer

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. ~ Francis Bacon

To spend too much time in them [studying] is sloth, to use them too much for ornament is affectation, to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor* of a scholar ... . ~ Francis Bacon

Opportunity makes a thief. ~ 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. ~ Francis Bacon

I've had photographs taken for portraits because I very much prefer working from the photographs than from models ... I couldn't attempt to do a portrait from photographs of somebody I didn't know ... ~ Francis Bacon

The wisdom of the ancients. ~ Francis Bacon

Knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, and therefore where it entereth into a man it makes him swell. ~ Francis Bacon

Certainly fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swoln, and drowns things weighty and solid. ~ Francis Bacon

I like Francis Bacon best, because Francis Bacon has terrific problems, and he knows that he is not going to solve them, but he knows also that he can escape from day to day and stay alive, and he does that because his work gives him a kick. ~ Louise Bourgeois

But we are not dedicating or building any Capitol or Pyramid to human Pride, but found a holy temple in the human Intellect, on the model of the Universe ... For whatever is worthy of Existence is worthy of Knowledge-which is the Image (or Echo) of Existence. ~ Francis Bacon

The matter of sedition is of two kinds: much poverty and much discontentment....The causes and motives of sedition are, innovation in religion; taxes; alteration of laws and customs; breaking of privileges; general oppression; advancement of unworthy persons, strangers; dearths; disbanded soldiers; factions grown desperate; and whatsoever in offending people joineth them in a common cause.' The cue of every leader, of course, is to divide his enemies and to unite his friends. 'Generally, the dividing and breaking of all factions...that are adverse to the state, and setting them at a distance, or at least distrust, among themselves, is not one of the worst remedies; for it is a desperate case, if those that hold with the proceeding of the state be full of discord and faction, and those that are against it be entire and united.' A better recipe for the avoidance of revolutions is an equitable distribution of wealth: 'Money is like muck, not good unless it be spread.' But this does not mean socialism, or even democracy; Bacon distrusts the people, who were in his day quite without access to education; 'the lowest of all flatteries is the flattery of the common people;' and 'Phocion took it right, who, being applauded by the multitude, asked, What had he done amiss?' What Bacon wants is first a yeomanry of owning farmers; then an aristocracy for administration; and above all a philosopher-king. 'It is almost without instance that any government was unprosperous under learned gove ~ Will Durant

It is by discourse that men associate; and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obsesses the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations, wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into innumerable and inane controversies and fancies. ~ Francis Bacon

Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends ~ Francis Bacon

Time is the author of authors. ~ Francis Bacon

To seek to extinguish anger utterly is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: 'Be angry, but sin not.' 'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.' ~ Francis Bacon

Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason. ~ Francis Bacon

More dangers have deceived men than forced them. ~ Francis Bacon

It is madness and a contradiction to expect that things which were never yet performed should be effected, except by means hitherto untried. ~ Francis Bacon

There is no secrecy comparable to celerity. ~ Francis Bacon

Wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity. ~ Francis Bacon

The first question concerning the Celestial Bodies is whether there be a system, that is whether the world or universe compose together one globe, with a center, or whether the particular globes of earth and stars be scattered dispersedly, each on its own roots, without any system or common center. ~ Francis Bacon

Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory. ~ Francis Bacon

But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men ... ~ Francis Bacon

Painting today is pure intuition and luck and taking advantage of what happens when you splash the stuff down. ~ Francis Bacon

If you want to convey fact, this can only ever be done through a form of distortion. You must distort to transform what is called appearance into image. ~ Francis Bacon

Since custom is the principal magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavor to obtain good customs. ~ Francis Bacon

It is a poore Center of a Mans Actions, Himselfe. ~ Francis Bacon

Friendship redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half. ~ Francis Bacon

If any human being earnestly desire to push on to new discoveries instead of just retaining and using the old; to win victories over Nature as a worker rather than over hostile critics as a disputant; to attain, in fact, clear and demonstrative knowlegde instead of attractive and probable theory; we invite him as a true son of Science to join our ranks. ~ Francis Bacon

He of whom many are afraid ought to fear many. ~ Francis Bacon

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. For I find much iteration, but small addition. It considereth causes of diseases, with the occasions or impulsions; the diseases themselves, with the accidents; and the cures, with the preservation. ~ Francis Bacon

Without friends the world is but a wilderness. ~ Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon is one of my giant inspirations. I just love him to pieces. ~ David Lynch

It is nothing won to admit men with an open door, and to receive them with a shut and reserved countenance. ~ Francis Bacon

For friends ... do but look upon good Books: they are true friends, that will neither flatter nor dissemble. ~ Francis Bacon

Doctor Johnson said, that in sickness there were three things that were material; the physician, the disease, and the patient: and if any two of these joined, then they get the victory; for, Ne Hercules quidem contra duos [Not even Hercules himself is a match for two]. If the physician and the patient join, then down goes the disease; for then the patient recovers: if the physician and the disease join, that is a strong disease; and the physician mistaking the cure, then down goes the patient: if the patient and the disease join, then down goes the physician; for he is discredited. ~ Francis Bacon

Medical men do not know the drugs they use, nor their prices. ~ Francis Bacon

Of great wealth there is no real use, except in its distribution, the rest is just conceit. ~ Francis Bacon

Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws. ~ Francis Bacon

Certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. ~ Francis Bacon

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

It is not the lie that passes through the mind, but the lie that sinks in and settles in it, that does the hurt. ~ Francis Bacon

Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time. ~ Francis Bacon

Age appears best in four things: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read. ~ Francis Bacon

They are the best physicians, who being great in learning most incline to the traditions of experience, or being distinguished in practice do not reflect the methods and generalities of art. ~ Francis Bacon

The End of our Foundation is the knowledge of Causes; and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of Human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible. ~ Francis Bacon

The way of fortune, is like the Milken Way in the sky; which is a meeting or knot of a number of small stars; not seen asunder, but giving light together. ~ Francis Bacon

The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies. ~ Francis Bacon

It is impossible to love and be wise. ~ Francis Bacon

A forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread it out. ~ Francis Bacon

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. ~ Francis Bacon

Truth is a naked and open daylight ~ Francis Bacon

It is not sufficient to know the right answers. One must also know the questions that produced them. Indeed, one must also know what a question is, for not every sentence that ends with a rising intonation or begins with an interrogative is necessarily a question. There are sentences that look like questions but cannot generate any meaningful answers, and, as Francis Bacon said, if they linger in our minds, they become obstructions to clear thinking. ~ Neil Postman

Nor is mine a trumpet which summons and excites men to cut each other to pieces with mutual contradictions, or to quarrel and fight with one another; but rather to make peace between themselves, and turning with united forces against the Nature of Things ~ Francis Bacon

Nothing is so mischievous as the apotheosis of error. ~ Francis Bacon

First the amendment of their own minds. For the removal of the impediments of the mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune than the obtaining fortune will remove the impediments of the mind. ~ Francis Bacon

All superstition is much the same whether it be that of astrology, dreams, omen, retributive judgment, or the like, in all of which the deluded believers observe events which are fulfilled, but neglect and pass over their failure, though it be much more common. ~ Francis Bacon

Of all things known to mortals wine is the most powerful and effectual for exciting and inflaming the passions of mankind, being common fuel to them all. ~ Francis Bacon

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral. ~ Francis Bacon

In nature things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place. ~ Francis Bacon

Truth is a naked and open daylight, that does not show the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights ... A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure ~ Francis Bacon

The divisions of science are not like different lines that meet in one angle, but rather like the branches of trees that join in one trunk. ~ Francis Bacon

Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue. ~ Francis Bacon

by indignities men come to dignities ~ Francis Bacon

Those herbs which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but, being trodden upon and crushed, are three; that is, burnet, wild thyme and watermints. Therefore, you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread. ~ Francis Bacon

Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use. ~ Francis Bacon

The mystery lies in the irrationality by which you make appearance - if it is not irrational, you make illustration. ~ Francis Bacon

We only have our nervous system to paint. ~ Francis Bacon

For better it is to make a beginning of that which may lead to something, than to engage in a perpetual struggle and pursuit in courses which have no exit. ~ Francis Bacon

The inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or the wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. ~ Francis Bacon

Worthy books are not companions - they are solitudes: we lose ourselves in them and all our cares ~ Francis Bacon

Riches are for spending. ~ Francis Bacon

Knowledge and human power are synonymous. ~ Francis Bacon

Princes are like heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration, but no rest. ~ Francis Bacon

There arises from a bad and inapt formation of words, a wonderful obstruction to the mind. ~ Francis Bacon

Painting is the pattern of one's own nervous system being projected on canvas. ~ Francis Bacon

God's first creature, which was light. ~ Francis Bacon

All good moral philosophy is ... but the handmaid to religion. ~ Francis Bacon

I want to make portraits and images. I don't know how. Out of despair, I just use paint anyway. Suddenly the things you make coagulate and take on just the shape you intend. Totally accurate marks, which are outside representational marks. ~ Francis Bacon

He that seeketh victory over his nature, let him not set himself too great, nor too small tasks; for the first will make him dejected by often failings; and the second will make him a small proceeder, though often by prevailings. ~ Francis Bacon

Neither is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper parts of any science, if you stand but upon the level of the same science, and ascend not to a higher science. ~ Francis Bacon

Disciples do owe their masters only a temporary belief, and a suspension of their own judgment till they be fully instructed ... ~ Francis Bacon

There is no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and onsets of things. ~ Francis Bacon

You cannot just be working in a vast, air-conditioned loft space and think you are going to make a decent painting. Francis Bacon had a special studio built, and he felt completely emasculated in there. I have to be somewhere comfortable. ~ Peter Doig

There is a kind of gaping admiration that would fain roll Shakespeare and Bacon into one, to have a bigger thing to gape at; and a class of men who cannot edit one author without disparaging all others. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present. ~ Francis Bacon

Knowledge is a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate. ~ Francis Bacon

The light that a man receives by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which comes from his own understanding and judgment, which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs. ~ Francis Bacon

Whoseoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god. Certain it is that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment. ~ Francis Bacon