Francis Bacon was an English philosopher, essayist, and statesman. He is probably the greatest intellectual figure of the Elizabethan period. The first of the great English essayist, Bacon, is one of the most quoted writers, for his style of writing is pithy, poignant and aphoristic. He wrote on themes such as truth, family, government, wisdom, and beauty.
Here are the best Francis Bacon quotes:
1. Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.
2. Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.
3. Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humour to console him for what he is.
4. In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.
5. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity is not without many comforts and hopes.
6. The worst solitude is to be destitute of true friendship.
7. Money is like manure, it’s only good if you spread it around.
8. The worst men often give the best advice.
9. Knowledge is power.
10. It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself.
11. It’s not what we profess but what we practise that gives us integrity.
12. Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armour of the will, and the fort of reason.
13. Wise men make more opportunities than they find.
14. He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.
15. Reading makes a full man, and writing an exact man.
16. A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.
17. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
18. In one and the same fire, clay grows hard and wax melts.
19. Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
20. It is impossible to love and be wise.
21. A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.
22. To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none.
23. Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.
24. The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.
25. Nature cannot be commanded except by being obeyed.
26. Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.
27. Money is a great servant but a bad master.
28. A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
29. They are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they can see nothing but the sea.
30. If we are to achieve things never before accomplished we must employ methods never before attempted.
31. Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
32. Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.
33. Great boldness is seldom without some absurdity.
34. Age appears best in four things: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read.
35. Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of the experience.
36. A bachelor’s life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.
37. There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
38. 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.
39. Wonder is the seed of knowledge.
40. The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.
41. In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.
42. Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
43. Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they are not altered for the better designedly.
44. Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand, and melting like a snowflake.
45. Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.
46. Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.
47. Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.
48. There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.
49. 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.
50. Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses.