Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St. Alban, QC (1561–1626,) was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, essayist, and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. After his death, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution.
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Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Questions
Praise from the common people is generally false, and rather follows the vain than the virtuous.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Applause
Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Youth
Ask counsel of both timesof the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.
—Francis Bacon
Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Adversity, Success & Failure, Prosperity
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Wisdom
The sun, though it passes through dirty places,
yet remains as pure as before.
—Francis Bacon
Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress.
—Francis Bacon
It is true that may hold in these things, which is the general root of superstition; namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.
—Francis Bacon
If a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.
—Francis Bacon
Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Reading
Be angry, but sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Anger must be limited and confined, both in race and in time.
—Francis Bacon
For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself.
—Francis Bacon
Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.
—Francis Bacon
Nothing is terrible except fear itself.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Fear
Opportunity makes a thief.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Progress, Opportunity
Knowledge, that tendeth but to satisfaction, is but as a courtesan, which is for pleasure, and not for fruit or generation.
—Francis Bacon
In contemplation, 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. They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Uncertainty, Doubt, Risk-taking
It is not possible to run a course aright when the goal itself has not been rightly placed.
—Francis Bacon
Nay, number itself in armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for, as Virgil saith, It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.
—Francis Bacon
Men in great place are thrice servants; servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so that they have no freedom, neither in their persons, in their actions, nor in their times.—It is a strange desire to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man’s self.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Greatness, Service, Power, Servants
It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Fear, Desire
Seek first the virtues of the mind; and other things either will come, or will not be wanted.
—Francis Bacon
By far the greatest impediment and aberration of the human understanding arises from (the fact that)… those things which strike the sense outweigh things which, although they may be more important, do not strike it directly. Hence, contemplation usually ceases with seeing, so much so that little or no attention is paid to things invisible.
—Francis Bacon
Riches are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions; therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion.
—Francis Bacon
There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Wisdom
Knowledge itself is power.
—Francis Bacon
By far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses.
—Francis Bacon
Science is the labor and handicraft of the mind.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Science
But this is that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than they have been … .
—Francis Bacon
Croesus said to Cambyses; That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons.
—Francis Bacon
A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.
—Francis Bacon
A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he has lost no time.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Carpe-Diem
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
—Francis Bacon
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Mistakes, Truth
Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repeat too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.
—Francis Bacon
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
—Francis Bacon
Histories make men wise; poets, witty; mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.
—Francis Bacon
Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Friendship
Money makes a good servant, but a bad master.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Money
A wise man will make more opportunities, than he finds.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Confidence, One liners, Self-reliance, Opportunities, Opportunity, Success
They are ill discoverers who think there is no land,
when they can see nothing but sea.
—Francis Bacon
Man ought to know that in the theater of human life, it is only for Gods and angels to be spectators.
—Francis Bacon
Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Money
Truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Truth, Mistakes
The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Vision
The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.
—Francis Bacon
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Hope
We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Forgiveness, Friendship
A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
—Francis Bacon
No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Truth
The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Friendship
For knowledge, too, is itself power.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Knowledge
Hope is the most beneficial of all the affections, and doth much to the prolongation of life, if it be not too often frustrated; but entertaineth the fancy with an expectation of good.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Hope
If a man be gracious,
and courteous to strangers,
it shows he is a citizen of the world.
—Francis Bacon
Related Authors
- Roger Bacon English Philosopher
- Isaac Newton English Physicist
- John Locke English Philosopher
- Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke English Politician, Philosopher
- Geoffrey Chaucer English Poet, Philosopher
- George Henry Lewes English Philosopher
- William of Ockham English Philosopher
- Baruch Spinoza Dutch Philosopher
- David Hume British Philosopher
- Alfred North Whitehead English Mathematician