Quotes from Francis Bacon

The virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude.

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.

People of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon and seldom drive business home to it's conclusion, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.

Truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion.

A false friend is more dangerous than an open enemy

The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.

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

To say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men.

For the unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself, or to call himself to account, nor the pleasure of that suavissima vita, indies sentire se fieri meliorem. 

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.

by indignities men come to dignities

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.

Constancy is the foundation of virtues

It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives.

The eye of the human understanding is not a naked organ of perception (lumen siccum), but an eye imbued with moisture by Will and Passion. Man always believes what he determines to believe.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.

God never wrought miracle to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

Revenge is a king of wild justice.

Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

Virtue is like precious odours, more fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

sejarah menjadikan orang bijaksana, puisi menjadikan orang fasih lidah, matematika menjadikan orang cerdik, filsafat menyebabkan orang berpikir dalam, moral menjadikan orang bersikap sungguh-sungguh, logika dan ilmu berpidato menjadikan orang berani mengeluarkan pendapat.

What then remains, but that we still should cry Not to be born, or being born, to die?

Let every student of nature take this as a rule,-- that whatever his mind seizes and dwells upon with peculiar satisfaction is to be held in suspicion.

It's all so meaningless, we may as well be extraordinary.