Quotes from Francis Bacon

We gave ourselves for lost men, and prepared for death. Yet we did lift up our hearts and voices to God above, who "showeth His wonders in the deep"; beseeching Him of His mercy, that as in the beginning He discovered the face of the deep, and brought forth dry land, so He would now discover land to us, that we might not perish.

Despise no new accident in your body, but ask opinion of it… There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic. A man's observation, what he finds good and of what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health.

The creative process is a cocktail of instinct, skill, culture and a highly creative feverishness. It is not like a drug; it is a particular state when everything happens very quickly, a mixture of consciousness and unconsciousness, of fear and pleasure, it's a little like making love, the physical act of love.

The true atheist is he whose hands are cauterized by holy things.

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgement and execution of business.

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

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Aristotle ... a mere bond-servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious...

For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced.

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.

MEN fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children, is increased with tales, so is the other.

The understanding must not therefore be supplied with wings, but rather hung with weights, to keep it from leaping and flying.

Judges ought to remember that their office is to interpret law, and not to make law, or give law.

Slander boldly, something always sticks [Audacter calumniare, semper aliquid haeret]

Nothing is so mischievous as the apotheosis of error.

Reasoning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.

For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts.

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.

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

God Almighty first planted a garden: and indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.

Look upon good books; they are true friends, that will neither flatter nor dissemble: be you but true to yourself...and you shall need no other comfort nor counsel.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

Knowledge itself is power

But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth, nor again that when it is found it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself.