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A Picture Should Be A Re-creation Of An Event Rather Than An Illustration Of An Object; But There Is No Tension In The Picture Unless There Is A Struggle With The Object.

-Francis Bacon

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A Picture Should Be

Francis Bacon

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A Picture Should Be A Re-creation Of An Event Rather Than An Illustration Of An Object; But There Is No Tension In The Picture Unless There Is A Struggle With The Object.

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The More A Man Drinketh Of The World, The More It Intoxicateth.

Human Knowledge And Human Power Meet In One; For Where The Cause Is Not Known The Effect Cannot Be Produced. Nature To Be Commanded Must Be Obeyed; And That Which In Contemplation Is As The Cause Is In Operation As The Rule.

Upon A Given Body To Generate And Superinduce A New Nature Or New Natures Is The Work And Aim Of Human Power. To Discover The Form Of A Given Nature, Or Its True Difference, Or Its Causal Nature, Or Fount Of Its Emanation... This Is The Work And Aim Of Human Knowledge.

The Human Understanding Is Like A False Mirror, Which, Receiving Rays Irregularly, Distorts And Discolors The Nature Of Things By Mingling Its Own Nature With It.

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

Virtue Is Like Precious Odours,-most Fragrant When They Are Incensed Or Crushed.

Never Any Knowledge Was Delivered In The Same Order It Was Invented.

A King That Would Not Feel His Crown Too Heavy For Him, Must Wear It Every Day; But If He Think It Too Light, He Knoweth Not Of What Metal It Is Made.

Things Alter For The Worse Spontaneously, If They Be Not Altered For The Better Designedly.

People Prefer To Believe What They Want To Be True.

Philosophy When Superficially Studied, Excites Doubt, When Thoroughly Explored, It Dispels It.

Overcoming Doubt

I Work For Posterity, These Things Requiring Ages For Their Accomplishment.

Friendship Increases In Visiting Friends, But In Visiting Them Seldom.

A Sudden Bold And Unexpected Question Doth Many Times Surprise A Man And Lay Him Open.

Neither The Naked Hand Nor The Understanding Left To Itself Can Effect Much. It Is By Instruments And Helps That The Work Is Done, Which Are As Much Wanted For The Understanding As For The Hand. And As The Instruments Of The Hand Either Give Motion Or Guide It, So The Instruments Of The Mind Supply Either Suggestions For The Understanding Or Cautions.

But By Far The Greatest Obstacle To The Progress Of Science And To The Undertaking Of New Tasks And Provinces Therein Is Found In This-that Men Despair And Think Things Impossible.

Such Is The Way Of All Superstition, Whether In Astrology, Dreams, Omens, Divine Judgments, Or The Like; Wherein Men, Having A Delight In Such Vanities, Mark The Events Where They Are Fulfilled, But Where They Fail, Though This Happen Much Oftener.

Even Within The Most Beautiful Landscape, In The Trees, Under The Leaves The Insects Are Eating Each Other; Violence Is A Part Of Life.

No Man's Fortune Can Be An End Worthy Of His Being.

Good Fame Is Like Fire; When You Have Kindled You May Easily Preserve It; But If You Extinguish It, You Will Not Easily Kindle It Again.

For The Chain Of Causes Cannot By Any Force Be Loosed Or Broken, Nor Can Nature Be Commanded Except By Being Obeyed.

Friends Are Thieves Of Time.

I Like, You May Say, The Glitter And Colour That Comes From The Mouth, And I've Always Hoped In A Sense To Be Able To Paint The Mouth Like Monet Painted A Sunset.

Nothing Opens The Heart Like A True Friend, To Whom You May Impart Griefs, Joys, Fears, Hopes...and Whatever Lies Upon The Heart.

The Serpent If It Wants To Become The Dragon Must Eat Itself.

Wives Are Young Men's Mistresses, Companions For Middle Age, And Old Men's Nurses.

The Genius, Wit, And The Spirit Of A Nation Are Discovered By Their Proverbs.

Above All, Believe It, The Sweetest Canticle Is Nunc Dimittis, When A Man Hath Obtained Worthy Ends And Expectations. Death Hath This Also, That It Openeth The Gate To Good Fame, And Extinguisheth Envy.

He Was Reputed One Of The Wise Men That Made Answer To The Question When A Man Should Marry? 'a Young Man Not Yet, An Elder Man Not At All.'

Libraries Are As The Shrine Where All The Relics Of The Ancient Saints, Full Of True Virtue, And That Without Delusion Or Imposture, Are Preserved And Reposed.

Nothing Is To Be Feared But Fear.

Write Down The Thoughts Of The Moment. Those That Come Unsought For Are Commonly The Most Valuable.

Nothing Is To Be Feared But Fear Itself. Nothing Grievous But To Yield To Grief.

He That Hath Wife And Children Hath Given Hostages To Fortune, For They Are Impediments To Great Enterprises, Either Of Virtue Or Mischief. Certainly The Best Works And Of Greatest Merit For The Public Have Proceeded From The Unmarried Or Childless Men, Which Both In Affection And Means Have Married And Endowed The Public. He Was Reputed One Of The Wise Men That Made Answer To The Question, When A Man Should Marrya Young Man Not Yet, An Elder Man Not At All.

There Is No Great Concurrence Between Learning And Wisdom.

It Was Well Said That Envy Keeps No Holidays.

To Say That A Man Lieth, Is As Much To Say, As That He Is Brave Towards God, And A Coward Towards Men.

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.

Travel, In The Younger Sort, Is A Part Of Education; In The Elder, A Part Of Experience. He That Travelleth Into A Country Before He Hath Some Entrance Into The Language, Goeth To School, And Not To Travel.

For Fountains, They Are A Great Beauty And Refreshment, But Pools Mar All, And Make The Garden Unwholesome, And Full Of Flies And Frogs.

Excusations, Cessions, Modesty Itself Well Governed, Are But Arts Of Ostentation.

Again There Is Another Great And Powerful Cause Why The Sciences Have Made But Little Progress; Which Is This. It Is Not Possible To Run A Course Aright When The Goal Itself Has Not Been Rightly Placed.

There Is No Such Flatterer As Is A Man's Self.

There Is A Cunning Which We In England Call "the Turning Of The Cat" In The Pan; Which Is, When That Which A Man Says To Another, He Says It As If Another Had Said It To Him.

Men Ought To Find The Difference Between Saltiness And Bitterness. Certainly, He That Hath A Satirical Vein, As He Maketh Others Afraid Of His Wit, So He Had Need Be Afraid Of Others' Memory.

If You Dissemble Sometimes Your Knowledge Of That You Are Thought To Know, You Shall Be Thought, Another Time, To Know That You Know Not.

Aristotle... A Mere Bond-servant To His Logic, Thereby Rendering It Contentious And Well Nigh Useless.

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.'

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.

Truth Comes Out Of Error More Readily Than Out Of Confusion.

Atheism Leaves A Man To Sense, To Philosophy, To Natural Piety, To Laws, To Reputation, All Which May Be Guides To An Outward Moral Virtue, Though Religion Were Not; But Superstition Dismounts All These, And Erects An Absolute Monarchy In The Minds Of Men.

Opportunity Makes A Thief.

Vain-glorious Men Are The Scorn Of The Wise, The Admiration Of Fools, The Idols Of Paradise, And The Slaves Of Their Own Vaunts.

Judges Ought To Be More Learned, Than Witty, More Reverend, Than Plausible, And More Advised, Than Confident. Above All Things, Integrity Is Their Portion And Proper Virtue.

If There Be Fuel Prepared, It Is Hard To Tell Whence The Spark Shall Come That Shall Set It On Fire.

The Human Understanding Is No Dry Light, But Receives An Infusion From The Will And Affections... What A Man Had Rather Were True He More Readily Believes.

Wise Sayings Are Not Only For Ornament, But For Action And Business, Having A Point Or Edge, Whereby Knots In Business Are Pierced And Discovered.

Discretion Of Speech Is More Than Eloquence, And To Speak Agreeably To Him With Whom We Deal Is More Than To Speak In Good Words, Or In Good Order.

There Ought To Be Gardens For All Months In The Year, In Which, Severally, Things Of Beauty May Be Then In Season.

A Man That Is Young In Years May Be Old In Hours If He Have Lost No Time.

If You Can Talk About It, Why Paint It?

States, As Great Engines, Move Slowly.

The Bee Enclosed And Through The Amber Shown Seems Buried In The Juice Which Was His Own.

The Folly Of One Man Is The Fortune Of Another.

Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est. (knowledge Itself Is Power.)

The Master Of Superstition, Is The People; And In All Superstition, Wise Men Follow Fools; And Arguments Are Fitted To Practice, In A Reversed Order.

It Is A Secret Both In Nature And State, That It Is Safer To Change Many Things Than One.

The Logic Now In Use Serves Rather To Fix And Give Stability To The Errors Which Have Their Foundation In Commonly Received Notions Than To Help The Search For Truth. So It Does More Harm Than Good.

A Just Fear Of An Imminent Danger, Though Be No Blow Given, Is A Lawful Cause Of War.

Riches Are For Spending.

Revenge Is A Kind Of Wild Justice, Which The More A Man's Nature Runs To, The More Ought Law To Weed It Out.

The Scripture Saith, The Fool Hath Said In His Heart, There Is No God; It Is Not Said, The Fool Hath Thought In His Heart; So As He Rather Saith It, By Rote To Himself, As That He Would Have, Than That He Can Thoroughly Believe It, Or Be Persuaded Of It....it Appeareth In Nothing More, That Atheism Is Rather In The Lip, Than In The Heart Of Man.

Gardening Is The Purest Of Human Pleasures.

Mahomet Made The People Believe That He Would Call A Hill To Him, And From The Top Of It Offer Up His Prayers For The Observers Of His Law. The People Assembled: Mahomet Called The Hill To Come To Him Again And Again; And When The Hill Stood Still, He Was Never A Whit Abashed, But Said, 'if The Hill Will Not Come To Mahomet, Mahomet Will Go To The Hill.'

The Wonder Of A Single Snowflake Outweighs The Wisdom Of A Million Meteorologists.

I Should Have Been, I Don't Know, A Con-man, A Robber Or A Prostitute. But It Was Vanity That Made Me Choose Painting, Vanity And Chance.

Before I Start Painting I Have A Slightly Ambiguous Feeling: Happiness Is A Special Excitement Because Unhappiness Is Always Possible A Moment Later.

Man, As The Minister And Interpreter Of Nature, Is Limited In Act And Understanding By His Observation Of The Order Of Nature; Neither His Understanding Nor His Power Extends Further.

That Things Are Changed, And That Nothing Really Perishes, And That The Sum Of Matter Remains Exactly The Same, Is Sufficiently Certain.

They Are Happy Men Whose Natures Sort With Their Vocations.

There Is Another Ground Of Hope That Must Not Be Omitted. Let Men But Think Over Their Infinite Expenditure Of Understanding, Time, And Means On Matters And Pursuits Of Far Less Use And Value; Whereof, If But A Small Part Were Directed To Sound And Solid Studies, There Is No Difficulty That Might Not Be Overcome.

The Best Preservative To Keep The Mind In Health Is The Faithful Admonition Of A Friend.

For Behavior, Men Learn It, As They Take Diseases, One Of Another.

Death Is A Friend Of Ours; And He That Is Not Ready To Entertain Him Is Not At Home.

Truth Can Never Be Reached By Just Listening To The Voice Of An Authority.

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.

You See, Painting Has Now Become, Or All Art Has Now Become Completely A Game, By Which Man Distracts Himself. What Is Fascinating Actually Is, That It's Going To Become Much More Difficult For The Artist, Because He Must Really Deepen The Game To Become Any Good At All.

Boldness Is Ever Blind, For It Sees Not Dangers And Inconveniences Whence It Is Bad In Council Though Good In Execution.

Time Is The Author Of Authors.

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.

For Whatever Deserves To Exist Deserves Also To Be Known, For Knowledge Is The Image Of Existence, And Things Mean And Splendid Exist Alike.

Perils Commonly Ask To Be Paid In Pleasures.

I Have To Hope That My Instincts Will Do The Right Thing, Because I Can't Erase What I Have Done. And If I Drew Something First, Then My Paintings Would Be Illustrations Of Drawings.

The Stage Is More Beholding To Love Than The Life Of Man. For As To The Stage, Love Is Ever Matter Of Comedies And Now And Then Of Tragedies; But In Life It Doth Much Mischief, Sometimes Like A Siren, Sometimes Like A Fury.

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.

No One Has Yet Been Found So Firm Of Mind And Purpose As Resolutely To Compel Himself To Sweep Away All Theories And Common Notions, And To Apply The Understanding, Thus Made Fair And Even, To A Fresh Examination Of Particulars. Thus It Happens That Human Knowledge, As We Have It, Is A Mere Medley And Ill-digested Mass, Made Up Of Much Credulity And Much Accident, And Also Of The Childish Notions Which We At First Imbibed.

The Human Understanding Is Of Its Own Nature Prone To Suppose The Existence Of More Order And Regularity In The World Than It Finds. And Though There Be Many Things In Nature Which Are Singular And Unmatched, Yet It Devises For Them Parallels And Conjugates And Relatives Which Do Not Exist. Hence The Fiction That All Celestial Bodies Move In Perfect Circles, Spirals And Dragons Being (except In Name) Utterly Rejected.

We See Then How Far The Monuments Of Wit And Learning Are More Durable Than The Monuments Of Power, Or Of The Hands. For Have Not The Verses Of Homer Continued Twenty-five Hundred Years Or More, Without The Loss Of A Syllable Or Letter; During Which Time Infinite Palaces, Temples, Castles, Cities Have Been Decayed And Demolished?

Fortune Is Like The Market, Where, Many Times, If You Can Stay A Little, The Price Will Fall.

The Universe Must Not Be Narrowed Down To The Limit Of Our Understanding, But Our Understanding Must Be Stretched And Enlarged To Take In The Image Of The Universe As It Is Discovered.

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.

Many A Man's Strength Is In Opposition, And When He Faileth, He Grows Out Of Use.

Atheism Is Rather In The Lip, Than In The Heart Of Man.

It Is A Sad Fate For A Man To Die Too Well Known To Everybody Else, And Still Unknown To Himself.

Rebellions Of The Belly Are The Worst.

An Artist Must Learn To Be Nourished By His Passions And By His Despairs.

Who Ever Is Out Of Patience Is Out Of Possession Of Their Soul.

The Eye Of Understanding Is Like The Eye Of The Sense; For As You May See Great Objects Through Small Crannies Or Levels, So You May See Great Axioms Of Nature Through Small And Contemptible Instances.

A Cat Will Never Drown If She Sees The Shore.

Fortune Makes Him Fool, Whom She Makes Her Darling.

Reading Maketh A Full Man.

The Nature Of Things Betrays Itself More Readily Under The Vexations Of Art Than In Its Natural Freedom.

Read Not To Contradict And Confute, Nor To Believe And Take For Granted... But To Weigh And Consider.

Laws And Institutions Must Go Hand In Hand With The Progress Of The Human Mind.

Base And Crafty Cowards Are Like The Arrow That Flieth In The Dark.

Therefore If A Man Look Sharply And Attentively, He Shall See Fortune; For Though She Be Blind, Yet She Is Not Invisible.

Some Paint Comes Across Directly Onto The Nervous System And Other Paint Tells You The Story In A Long Diatribe Through The Brain.

O Life! An Age To The Miserable, A Moment To The Happy.

Important Families Are Like Potatoes. The Best Parts Are Underground.

But The Best Demonstration By Far Is Experience, If It Go Not Beyond The Actual Experiment.

There Are Two Books Laid Before Us To Study, To Prevent Our Falling Into Error; First, The Volume Of The Scriptures, Which Reveal The Will Of God; Then The Volume Of The Creatures, Which Express His Power.

The Way Of Fortune Is Like The Milky Way In The Sky; Which Is A Meeting, Or Knot, Of A Number Of Small Stars, Not Seen Asunder, But Giving Light Together : So Are There A Number Of Little And Scarce Discerned Virtues, Or Rather Faculties And Customs, That Make Men Fortunate.

Suspicions That The Mind, Of Itself, Gathers, Are But Buzzes; But Suspicions That Are Artificially Nourished And Put Into Men's Heads By The Tales And Whisperings Of Others, Have Stings.

The Idols Of Tribe Have Their Foundation In Human Nature Itself, And In The Tribe Or Race Of Men. For It Is A False Assertion That The Sense Of Man Is The Measure Of Things. On The Contrary, All Perceptions As Well Of The Sense As Of The Mind Are According To The Measure Of The Individual And Not According To The Measure Of The Universe. And The Human Understanding Is Like A False Mirror, Which, Receiving Rays Irregularly, Distorts And Discolors The Nature Of Things By Mingling Its Own Nature With It.

For Friends... Do But Look Upon Good Books: They Are True Friends, That Will Neither Flatter Nor Dissemble.

Everybody Has His Own Interpretation Of A Painting He Sees.

Crafty Men Condemn Studies; Simple Men Admire Them; And Wise Men Use Them: For They Teach Not Their Own Use: But That Is A Wisdom Without Them, And Above Them, Won By Observation.

There Were Taken Apples, And ... Closed Up In Wax. ... After A Month's Space, The Apple Inclosed In Was Was As Green And Fresh As The First Putting In, And The Kernals Continued White. The Cause Is, For That All Exclusion Of Open Air, Which Is Ever Predatory, Maintaineth The Body In Its First Freshness And Moisture.

Why Should I Be Angry With A Man For Loving Himself Better Than Me?

You Want Accuracy, But Not Representation. If You Know How To Make The Figuration, It Doesn't Work. Anything You Can Make, You Make By Accident. In Painting, You Have To Know What You Do, Not How, When You Do It.

Liberty Of Speech Invites And Provokes Liberty To Be Used Again, And So Bringeth Much To A Man's Knowledge.

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.

Velazquez Found The Perfect Balance Between The Ideal Illustration Which He Was Required To Produce, And The Overwhelming Emotion He Aroused In The Spectator.

But The Images Of Men's Wits And Knowledges Remain In Books, Exempted From The Wrong Of Time, And Capable Of Perpetual Renovation.

In Things That Are Tender And Unpleasing, It Is Good To Break The Ice By Some One Whose Words Are Of Less Weight, And To Reserve The More Weighty Voice To Come In As By Chance.

An Illustrational Form Tells You Through The Intelligence Immediately What The Form Is About, Whereas A Non-illustrational Form Works First Upon Sensation And Then Slowly Leaks Back Into The Fact.

Nevertheless If Any Skillful Servant Of Nature Shall Bring Force To Bear On Matter, And Shall Vex It And Drive It To Extremities As If With The Purpose Of Reducing It To Nothing, Then Will Matter (since Annihilation Or True Destruction Is Not Possible Except By The Omnipotence Of God) Finding Itself In These Straits, Turn And Transform Itself Into Strange Shapes, Passing From One Change To Another Till It Has Gone Through The Whole Circle And Finished The Period.

Acorns Were Good Until Bread Was Found.

Children Sweeten Labours, But They Make Misfortunes More Bitter.

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

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.

A Graceful And Pleasing Figure Is A Perpetual Letter Of Recommendation.

The Person Is A Poor Judge Who By An Action Can Be Disgraced More In Failing Than They Can Be Honored In Succeeding.

There Is Nothing Makes A Man Suspect Much, More Than To Know Little.

God Almighty First Planted A Garden. And Indeed, It Is The Purest Of Human Pleasures.

A Bachelor's Life Is A Fine Breakfast, A Flat Lunch, And A Miserable Dinner.

Pyrrhus, When His Friends Congratulated To Him His Victory Over The Romans Under Fabricius, But With Great Slaughter Of His Own Side, Said To Them, "yes; But If We Have Such Another Victory, We Are Undone."

People Have Discovered That They Can Fool The Devil; But They Can't Fool The Neighbors.

Houses Are Built To Live In, And Not To Look On: Therefore Let Use Be Preferred Before Uniformity.

Small Amounts Of Philosophy Lead To Atheism, But Larger Amounts Bring Us Back To God.

If My People Look As If They're In A Dreadful Fix, It's Because I Can't Get Them Out Of A Technical Dilemma.

Science Is But An Image Of The Truth.

Truth Is A Naked And Open Daylight

Books Will Speak Plain When Counselors Blanch.

Such Philosophy As Shall Not Vanish In The Fume Of Subtile, Sublime, Or Delectable Speculation But Shall Be Operative To The Endowment And Betterment Of Man's Life.

Brutes By Their Natural Instinct Have Produced Many Discoveries, Whereas Men By Discussion And The Conclusions Of Reason Have Given Birth To Few Or None.

There Is Superstition In Avoiding Superstition.

Those That Want Friends To Open Themselves Unto Are Cannibals Of Their Own Hearts.

Mind Your Own Business

Man Prefers To Believe What He Prefers To Be True.

A Man Must Make His Opportunity, As Oft As Find It.

Young Men, In The Conduct And Manage Of Actions, Embrace More Than They Can Hold; Stir More Than They Can Quiet; Fly To The End, Without Consideration Of The Means And Degrees; Pursue Some Few Principles, Which They Have Chanced Upon Absurdly; Care Not To Innovate, Which Draws Unknown Inconveniences; Use Extreme Remedies At First; And, That Which Doubleth All Errors, Will Not Acknowledge Or Retract Them; Like An Unready Horse, That Will Neither Stop Nor Turn.

We Read That We Ought To Forgive Our Enemies; But We Do Not Read That We Ought To Forgive Our Friends.

Secrecy In Suits Goes A Great Way Towards Success.

Parents Who Wish To Train Up Their Children In The Way They Should Go Must Go In The Way In Which They Would Have Their Children Go.

Many Secrets Of Art And Nature Are Thought By The Unlearned To Be Magical.

Take An Arrow, And Hold It In Flame For The Space Of Ten Pulses, And When It Cometh Forth You Shall Find Those Parts Of The Arrow Which Were On The Outsides Of The Flame More Burned, Blacked, And Turned Almost To Coal, Whereas The Midst Of The Flame Will Be As If The Fire Had Scarce Touched It. This Is An Instance Of Great Consequence For The Discovery Of The Nature Of Flame; And Sheweth Manifestly, That Flame Burneth More Violently Towards The Sides Than In The Midst.

It Is Impossible To Love And To Be Wise.

Custom Is The Principle Magistrate Of Man's Life.

The Greatest Vicissitude Of Things Amongst Men, Is The Vicissitude Of Sects And Religions.

Of All Virtues And Dignities Of The Mind, Goodness Is The Greatest

Hurl Your Calumnies Boldly; Something Is Sure To Stick.

The True Bounds And Limitations, Whereby Human Knowledge Is Confined And Circumscribed,... Are Three: The First, That We Do Not So Place Our Felicity In Knowledge, As We Forget Our Mortality: The Second, That We Make Application Of Our Knowledge, To Give Ourselves Repose And Contentment, And Not Distates Or Repining: The Third, That We Do Not Presume By The Contemplation Of Nature To Attain To The Mysteries Of God.

Studies Perfect Nature And Are Perfected Still By Experience.

Hope Is The Most Beneficial Of All The Affections, And Doth Much To The Prolongation Of Life.

It Is Idle To Expect Any Great Advancement In Science From The Superinducing And Engrafting Of New Things Upon Old. We Must Begin Anew From The Very Foundations, Unless We Would Revolve For Ever In A Circle With Mean And Contemptible Progress.

Nothing Is Pleasant That Is Not Spiced With Variety.

Variety Is The Spice Of Life

Let The Mind Be Enlarged... To The Grandeur Of The Mysteries, And Not The Mysteries Contracted To The Narrowness Of The Mind

I'm Working For Myself; What Else Have I Got To Work For? How Can You Work For An Audience? What Do You Imagine An Audience Would Want? I Have Got Nobody To Excite Except Myself, So I Am Always Surprised If Anyone Likes My Work Sometimes. I Suppose I'm Very Lucky, Of Course, To Be Able To Earn My Living By Something That Really Absorbs Me To Try To Do, If That Is What You Call Luck.

For No Man Can Forbid The Spark Nor Tell Whence It May Come.

It Is Nothing Won To Admit Men With An Open Door, And To Receive Them With A Shut And Reserved Countenance.

One Always Starts Work With The Subject, No Matter How Tenuous It Is, And One Constructs An Artificial Structure By Which One Can Trap The Reality Of The Subject-matter That One Has Started From.

You Could Say That I Have No Inspiration, That I Only Need To Paint.

Truth Emerges More Readily From Error Than From Confusion.

It Is A Strange Desire, To Seek Power, And To Lose Liberty; Or To Seek Power Over Others, And To Lose Power Over A Man's Self.

Disciples Do Owe Their Masters Only A Temporary Belief, And A Suspension Of Their Own Judgment Till They Be Fully Instructed.

But By Far The Greatest Hindrance And Aberration Of The Human Understanding Proceeds From The Dullness, Incompetency, And Deceptions Of The Senses; In That Things Which Strike The Sense Outweigh Things Which Do Not Immediately Strike It, Though They Be More Important. Hence It Is That Speculation Commonly Ceases Where Sight Ceases; Insomuch That Of Things Invisible There Is Little Or No Observation.

He That Toucheth Pitch Shall Be Defiled Therewith.

A Bad Man Is Worse When He Pretends To Be A Saint.

The Worst Solitude Is To Have No Real Friendships.

It Would Be Unsound Fancy And Self-contradictory To Expect That Things Which Have Never Yet Been Done Can Be Done Except By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried.

It Is The Wisdom Of The Crocodiles, That Shed Tears When They Would Devour.

Deformed Persons Commonly Take Revenge On Nature.

Children Sweeten Labours. But They Make Misfortune More Bitter. They Increase The Care Of Life. But They Mitigate The Remembrance Of Death. The Perpetuity Of Generation Is Common To Beasts. But Memory, Merit And Noble Works Are Proper To Men. And Surely A Man Shall See The Noblest Works And Foundations Have Proceeded From Childless Men Which Have Sought To Express The Images Of Their Minds Where Those Of Their Bodies Have Failed.

Books Must Follow Sciences, And Not Sciences Books.

Age Appears To Be Best In Four Things; Old Wood Best To Burn, Old Wine To Drink, Old Friends To Trust, And Old Authors To Read.

The Zeal Which Begins With Hypocrisy Must Conclude In Treachery At First It Deceives, At Last It Betrays

God Loveth The Clean.

Fortitude Is The Marshal Of Thought, The Armor Of The Will, And The Fort Of Reason.

Praise Is The Reflection Of Virtue.

Man Was Formed For Society.

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