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As You Work, The Mood Grows On You. There Are Certain Images Which Suddenly Get Hold Of Me And I Really Want To Do Them. But It's True To Say That The Excitement And Possibilities Are In The Working And Obviously Can Only Come In The Working.

-Francis Bacon

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As You Work, The

Francis Bacon

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As You Work, The Mood Grows On You. There Are Certain Images Which Suddenly Get Hold Of Me And I Really Want To Do Them. But It's True To Say That The Excitement And Possibilities Are In The Working And Obviously Can Only Come In The Working.

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By Far The Best Proof Is Experience.

I Hold Every Man A Debtor To His Profession; From The Which As Men Of Course Do Seek To Receive Countenance And Profit, So Ought They Of Duty To Endeavor Themselves, By Way Of Amends, To Be A Help And Ornament Thereunto.

But Men Must Know, That In This Theatre Of Man's Life It Is Reserved Only For God And Angels To Be Lookers On.

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.

Chiefly The Mold Of A Man's Fortune Is In His Own Hands.

Judges Must Beware Of Hard Constructions And Strained Inferences, For There Is No Worse Torture Than That Of Laws.

I Feel That I Am Much Freer If I'm On My Own, But I'm Sure That There Are A Lot Of Painters Who Would Perhaps Be Even More Inventive If They Had People Round Them... I Find That If I Am On My Own I Can Allow The Paint To Dictate To Me. So The Images That I'm Putting Down On The Canvas Dictate The Thing To Me And It Gradually Builds Up And Comes Along.

Images Also Help Me Find And Realise Ideas. I Look At Hundreds Of Very Different, Contrasting Images And I Pinch Details From Them, Rather Like People Who Eat From Other People`s Plates.

I Always Think Of Myself Not So Much As A Painter But As A Medium For Accident And Chance.

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 The True Office Of History To Represent The Events Themselves, Together With The Counsels, And To Leave The Observations And Conclusions Thereupon To The Liberty And Faculty Of Every Man's Judgment

Ill Fortune Never Crushed That Man Whom Good Fortune Deceived Not.

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.

It Is A Pleasure To Stand Upon The Shore, And To See Ships Tost Upon The Sea: A Pleasure To Stand In The Window Of A Castle, And To See A Battle And The Adventures Thereof Below: But No Pleasure Is Comparable To Standing Upon The Vantage Ground Of Truth . . . And To See The Errors, And Wanderings, And Mists, And Tempests, In The Vale Below.

He That Seeketh To Be Eminent Amongst Able Men Hath A Great Task; But That Is Ever Good For The Public. But He That Plots To Be The Only Figure Amongst Ciphers Is The Decay Of A Whole Age.

Men Seem Neither To Understand Their Riches Nor Their Strength. Of The Former They Believe Greater Things Than They Should; Of The Latter, Less.

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

If You Want To Convey Fact, This Can Only Ever Be Done Through A Form Of Distortion. You Must Distort To Transform What Is Called Appearance Into Image.

Histories Make Men Wise; Poets, Witty; The Mathematics, Subtle; Natural Philosophy, Deep; Moral, Grave; Logic And Rhetoric, Able To Contend.

Man, Being The Servant And Interpreter Of Nature, Can Do And Understand So Much And So Much Only As He Has Observed In Fact Or Thought Of The Course Of Nature; Beyond This He Neither Knows Anything Nor Can Do Anything.

Our Humanity Is A Poor Thing, Except For The Divinity That Stirs Within Us.

Men Of Noble Birth Are Noted To Be Envious Towards New Men When They Rise. For The Distance Is Altered, And It Is Like A Deceit Of The Eye, That When Others Come On They Think Themselves Go Back.

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.

The Speaking In A Perpetual Hyperbole Is Comely In Nothing But Love.

Be Not Penny-wise. Riches Have Wings. Sometimes They Fly Away Of Themselves, And Sometimes They Must Be Set Flying To Bring In More.

The Essential Form Of Knowledge... Is Nothing But A Representation Of Truth: For The Truth Of Being And The Truth Of Knowing Are One, Differing No More Than The Direct Beam And The Beam Reflected.

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.

Secrecy In Suits Goes A Great Way Towards Success.

A Good Name Is Like Precious Ointment ; It Filleth All Round About, And Will Not Easily Away; For The Odors Of Ointments Are More Durable Than Those Of Flowers.

I Knew A Wise Man That Had It For A By-word, When He Saw Men Hasten To A Conclusion, "stay A Little, That We May Make An End The Sooner."

Money Is A Great Treasure That Only Increases As You Give It Away.

Generally He Perceived In Men Of Devout Simplicity This Opinion: That The Secrets Of Nature Were The Secrets Of God, Part Of That Glory Into Which Man Is Not To Press Too Boldly.

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

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.

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

I'm Just Trying To Make Images As Accurately As Possible Off My Nervous System As I Can.

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

Believe Not Much Them That Seem To Despise Riches, For They Despise Them That Despair Of Them.

He That Plots To Be The Only Figure Among Ciphers [zeros], Is The Decay Of The Whole Age.

[science Is] The Labor And Handicraft Of The Mind.

God Has Placed No Limits To The Exercise Of The Intellect He Has Given Us, On This Side Of The Grave.

The Desire Of Excessive Power Caused The Angels To Fall; The Desire Of Knowledge Caused Men To Fall.

In Charity There Is No Excess.

A Prudent Question Is One-half Of Wisdom.

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

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.

A Much Talking Judge Is An Ill-tuned Cymbal.

Nuptial Love Makes Mankind; Friendly Love Perfects It; But Wanton Love Corrupts And Debases It.

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

We Think According To Nature. We Speak According To Rules. We Act According To Custom.

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.

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

Time Is The Author Of Authors.

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.

It Is True, That A Little Philosophy Inclineth Man’s Mind To Atheism; But Depth In Philosophy Bringeth Men’s Minds About To Religion. For While The Mind Of Man Looketh Upon Second Causes Scattered, It May Sometimes Rest In Them, And Go No Further; But When It Beholdeth The Chain Of Them, Confederate And Linked Together, It Must Needs Fly To Providence And Deity.

Lies Are Sufficient To Breed Opinion, And Opinion Brings On Substance.

Believing That I Was Born For The Service Of Mankind, And Regarding The Care Of The Commonwealth As A Kind Of Common Property Which, Like The Air And The Water, Belongs To Everybody, I Set Myself To Consider In What Way Mankind Might Be Best Served, And What Service I Was Myself Best Fitted By Nature To Perform.

Learning Hath His Infancy, When It Is But Beginning And Almost Childish; Then His Youth, When It Is Luxuriant And Juvenile; Then His Strength Of Years, When It Is Solid And Reduced; And Lastly His Old Age, When It Waxeth Dry And Exhaust.

In Revenge A Man Is But Even With His Enemy; For It Is A Princely Thing To Pardon, And Solomon Saith It Is The Glory Of A Man To Pass Over A Transgression.

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

He That Cometh To Seek After Knowledge, With A Mind To Scorn, Shall Be Sure To Find Matter For His Humour, But No Matter For His Instruction.

Certainly The Best Works, And Of Greatest Merit For The Public, Have Proceeded From The Unmarried, Or Childless Men.

A Good Conscience Is A Continual Feast.

There Is In Man's Nature A Secret Inclination And Motion Towards Love Of Others, Which, If It Be Not Spent Upon Some One Or A Few, Doth Naturally Spread Itself Towards Many, And Maketh Men Become Humane And Charitable, As It Is Seen Sometimes In Friars. Nuptial Love Maketh Mankind, Friendly Love Perfecteth It, But Wanton Love Corrupteth And Embaseth It.

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

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.

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

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 Joys Of Parents Are Secret, And So Are Their Grieves And Fears.

Rebellions Of The Belly Are The Worst.

First Therefore Let Us Seek The Dignity Of Knowledge In The Archetype Or First Platform, Which Is In The Attributes And Acts Of God, As Far As They Are Revealed To Man And May Be Observed With Sobriety; Wherein We May Not Seek It By The Name Of Learning; For All Learning Is Knowledge Acquired, And All Knowledge In God Is Original: And Therefore We Must Look For It By Another Name, That Of Wisdom Or Sapience, As The Scriptures Call It.

The Colors That Show Best By Candlelight Are White, Carnation, And A Kind Of Sea-water Green.

God Has, In Fact, Written Two Books, Not Just One. Of Course, We Are All Familiar With The First Book He Wrote, Namely Scripture. But He Has Written A Second Book Called Creation.

Men In Great Place Are Thrice Servants: Servants Of The Sovereign Or State, Servants Of Fame, And Servants Of Business.

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

The Human Understanding Is Moved By Those Things Most Which Strike And Enter The Mind Simultaneously And Suddenly, And So Fill The Imagination; And Then It Feigns And Supposes All Other Things To Be Somehow, Though It Cannot See How, Similar To Those Few Things By Which It Is Surrounded.

Some Artists Leave Remarkable Things Which, A 100 Years Later, Don't Work At All. I Have Left My Mark; My Work Is Hung In Museums, But Maybe One Day The Tate Gallery Or The Other Museums Will Banish Me To The Cellar... You Never Know.

Children Sweeten Labours, But They Make Misfortunes More Bitter.

Out Of Monuments, Names, Words Proverbs ...and The Like, We Do Save And Recover Somewhat From The Deluge Of Time.

Books Will Speak Plain When Counselors Blanch.

Science Is But An Image Of The Truth.

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.

Seek Ye First The Good Things Of The Mind, And The Rest Will Either Be Supplied Or Its Loss Will Not Be Felt.

Let No One Think Or Maintain That A Person Can Search Too Far Or Be Too Well Studied In Either The Book Of God's Word Or The Book Of God's Works.

There Is No Doubt But Men Of Genius And Leisure May Carry Our Method To Greater Perfection, But, Having Had Long Experience, We Have Found None Equal To It For The Commodiousness It Affords In Working With The Understanding.

Pictures And Shapes Are But Secondary Objects And Please Or Displease Only In The Memory.

He That Cannot Possibly Mend His Own Case Will Do What He Can To Impair Another's.

Knowledge Is A Rich Storehouse For The Glory Of The Creator And The Relief Of Man's Estate.

It Is A Good Point Of Cunning For A Man To Shape The Answer He Would Have In His Own Words And Propositions, For It Makes The Other Party Stick The Less.

Discretion In Speech Is More Than Eloquence.

Fame Is Like A River, That Beareth Up Things Light And Swollen, And Drowns Things Weighty And Solid.

To Conclude, Therefore, Let No Man Upon A Weak Conceit Of Sobriety Or An Ill-applied Moderation Think Or Maintain That A Man Can Search Too Far, Or Be Too Well Studied In The Book Of God's Word, Or The Book Of God's Works, Divinity Or Philosophy; But Rather Let Men Endeavor An Endless Progress Or Proficience In Both; Only Let Men Beware That They Apply Both To Charity, And Not To Swelling; To Use, And Not To Ostentation; And Again, That They Do Not Unwisely Mingle Or Confound These Learnings Together.

What, Then, Remains But That We Still Should Cry, For Being Born, And, Being Born, To Die?

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.

Reading Maketh A Full Man; Conference A Ready Man; And Writing An Exact Man.

We Rise To Great Heights By A Winding Staircase Of Small Steps.

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

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

If A Man Will Begin With Certainties, He Shall End In Doubts, But If He Will Content To Begin With Doubts, He Shall End In Certainties.

Of Great Wealth There Is No Real Use, Except In Its Distribution, The Rest Is Just Conceit.

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.

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.

Ask Counsel Of Both Timesof The Ancient Time What Is Best, And Of The Latter Time What Is Fittest.

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.

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

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.

Painting Is A Duality And Abstract Painting Is An Entirely Aesthetic Thing. It Always Remains On One Level. It Is Only Really Interesting In The Beauty Of Its Patterns Or Its Shapes.

Abstract Painting

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

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.

When Any Of The Four Pillars Of Government-religion, Justice, Counsel, And Treasure-are Mainly Shaken Or Weakened, Men Had Need To Pray For Fair Weather.

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

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

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.

There Is No Vice That Doth So Cover A Man With Shame As To Be Found False And Perfidious.

He That Will Not Apply New Remedies, Must Expect New Evils: For Time Is The Greatest Innovator: And If Time, Of Course, Alter Things To The Worse, And Wisdom And Counsel Shall Not Alter Them To The Better, What Shall Be The End?.

In One And The Same Fire, Clay Grows Hard And Wax Melts.

That Conceit, Elegantly Expressed By The Emperor Charles V., In His Instructions To The King, His Son, "that Fortune Hath Somewhat The Nature Of A Woman, That If She Be Too Much Wooed She Is The Farther Off.

The Syllogism Consists Of Propositions, Propositions Consist Of Words, Words Are Symbols Of Notions. Therefore If The Notions Themselves (which Is The Root Of The Matter) Are Confused And Over-hastily Abstracted From The Facts, There Can Be No Firmness In The Superstructure. Our Only Hope Therefore Lies In A True Induction.

God Loveth The Clean.

The Momentous Thing In Human Life Is The Art Of Winning The Soul To Good Or Evil.

Nothing Is To Be Feared But Fear.

When A Doubt Is Once Received, Men Labour Rather How To Keep It A Doubt Still, Than How To Solve It; And Accordingly Bend Their Wits.

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.

For It Is Not Possible To Join Serpentine Wisdom With Columbine Innocence, Except Men Know Exactly All The Conditions Of The Serpent: His Baseness And Going Upon His Belly, His Volubility And Lubricity, His Envy And Sting, And The Rest; That Is, All Forms And Natures Of Evil: For Without This, Virtue Lieth Open And Unfenced.

Observation And Experiment For Gathering Material, Induction And Deduction For Elaborating It: These Are Are Only Good Intellectual Tools.

Great Art Is Deeply Ordered. Even If Within The Order There May Be Enormously Instinctive And Accidental Things, Nevertheless They Come Out Of A Desire For Ordering And For Returning Fact Onto The Nervous System In A More Violent Way.

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

States Are Great Engines Moving Slowly.

But We May Go Further, And Affirm Most Truly, That It Is A Mere And Miserable Solitude To Want True Friends; Without Which The World Is But A Wilderness.

I Foresee It And Yet I Hardly Ever Carry It Out As I Foresee It. It Transforms Itself By The Actual Paint. I Don't In Fact Know Very Often What The Paint Will Do, And It Does Many Things Which Are Very Much Better Than I Could Make It Do.

He That Hath Wife And Children Hath Given Hostages To Fortune; For They Are Impediments To Great Enterprises, Either Of Virtue Or Mischief.

When A Bee Stings, She Dies. She Cannot Sting And Live. When Men Sting, Their Better Selves Die. Every Sting Kills A Better Instinct. Men Must Not Turn Bees And Kill Themselves In Stinging Others.

And As For Mixed Mathematics, I May Only Make This Prediction, That There Cannot Fail To Be More Kinds Of Them, As Nature Grows Further Disclosed.

Envy Is Ever Joined With The Comparing Of A Man's Self; And Where There Is No Comparison, No Envy.

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

The Mold Of Our Fortunes Is In Our Own Hands.

The Inclination To Goodness Is Imprinted Deeply In The Nature Of Man.

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

A Wise Man Will Make More Opportunities Than He Finds.

There Was Never Miracle Wrought By God To Convert An Atheist, Because The Light Of Nature Might Have Led Him To Confess A God.

I Would Like, In My Arbitrary Way, To Bring One Nearer To The Actual Human Being.

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.

Half Of Science Is Putting Forth The Right Questions.

Right Questions

I've Had Photographs Taken For Portraits Because I Very Much Prefer Working From The Photographs Than From Models... I Couldn't Attempt To Do A Portrait From Photographs Of Somebody I Didn't Know.

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.

A Man Were Better Relate Himself To A Statue Or Picture Than To Suffer His Thoughts To Pass In Smother.

A Man That Studieth Revenge Keeps His Own Wounds Green.

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.

Studies Perfect Nature And Are Perfected Still By Experience.

Great Boldness Is Seldom Without Some Absurdity.

In Nature Things Move Violently To Their Place, And Calmly In Their Place.

Gardening Is The Purest Of Human Pleasures.

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.

Man Was Formed For Society.

It Is A Miserable State Of Mind To Have Few Things To Desire And Many Things To Fear.

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

Hurl Your Calumnies Boldly; Something Is Sure To Stick.

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 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.

Of All The Things In Nature, The Formation And Endowment Of Man Was Singled Out By The Ancients.

All Will Come Out In The Washing.

If A Man's Wit Be Wandering, Let Him Study The Mathematics; For In Demonstrations, If His Wit Be Called Away Never So Little, He Must Begin Again.

Fortune Makes Him Fool, Whom She Makes Her Darling.

Prosperity Discovers Vice, Adversity Discovers Virtue.

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.

There Was Never Law, Or Sect, Or Opinion Did So Much Magnify Goodness, As The Christian Religion Doth.

There Is As Much Difference Between The Counsel That A Friend Giveth, And That A Man Giveth Himself, As There Is Between The Counsel Of A Friend And Of A Flatterer. For There Is No Such Flatterer As Is A Man's Self.

Love And Envy Make A Man Pine, Which Other Affections Do Not, Because They Are Not So Continual.

Religion Brought Forth Riches, And The Daughter Devoured The Mother.

The Surest Way To Prevent Seditions...is To Take Away The Matter Of Them.

Travel, In The Younger Sort, Is A Part Of Education; In The Elder, A Part Of Experience.

That Which Above All Other Yields The Sweetest Smell In The Air Is The Violet.

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.

The Cause And Root Of Nearly All Evils In The Sciences Is This-that While We Falsely Admire And Extol The Powers Of The Human Mind We Neglect To Seek For Its True Helps.

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.

But The Idols Of The Market Place Are The Most Troublesome Of All: Idols Which Have Crept Into The Understanding Through Their Alliances With Words And Names. For Men Believe That Their Reason Governs Words. But Words Turn And Twist The Understanding. This It Is That Has Rendered Philosophy And The Sciences Inactive. Words Are Mostly Cut To The Common Fashion And Draw The Distinctions Which Are Most Obvious To The Common Understanding. Whenever An Understanding Of Greater Acuteness Or More Diligent Observation Would Alter Those Lines To Suit The True Distinctions Of Nature, Words Complain.

There Was A Young Man In Rome That Was Very Like Augustus Caesar; Augustus Took Knowledge Of It And Sent For The Man, And Asked Him "was Your Mother Never At Rome?" He Answered "no Sir; But My Father Was."

He That Toucheth Pitch Shall Be Defiled Therewith.

Boldness Is A Child Of Ignorance

I Think I Tend To Destroy The Better Paintings, Or Those That Have Been Better To A Certain Extent. I Try And Take Them Further, And They Lose All Their Qualities, And They Lose Everything. I Think I Would Say That I Destroy All The Better Paintings.

Choose The Life That Is Most Useful, And Habit Will Make It The Most Agreeable.

There Is In Human Nature Generally More Of The Fool Than Of The Wise.

The Only Hope [of Science] ... Is In Genuine Induction.

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

There Is A Wisdom In This Beyond The Rules Of Physic: A Man's Own Observation What He Finds Good Of And What He Finds Hurt Of Is The Best Physic To Preserve Health.

The Human Understanding, From Its Peculiar Nature, Easily Supposes A Greater Degree Of Order And Equality In Things Than It Really Finds.

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.

There Is No Excellent Beauty That Hath Not Some Strangeness In The Proportion.

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 I Account The Use That A Man Should Seek Of The Publishing Of His Own Writings Before His Death, To Be But An Untimely Anticipation Of That Which Is Proper To Follow A Man, And Not To Go Along With Him.

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

There Is No Greater Wisdom Than Well To Time The Beginnings And Onsets Of Things.

Lukewarm Persons Think They May Accommodate Points Of Religion By Middle Ways And Witty Reconcilements,--as If They Would Make An Arbitrament Between God And Man.

If I Might Control The Literature Of The Household, I Would Guarantee The Well-being Of Church And State.

To Be Free Minded And Cheerfully Disposed At Hours Of Meat And Sleep And Of Exercise Is One Of The Best Precepts Of Long Lasting.

The Images Of Mens Wits And Knowledge Remain In Books. They Generate Still, And Cast Their Seeds In The Minds Of Others, Provoking And Causing Infinite Actions And Opinions In Succeeding Ages

Of All Things Known To Mortals, Wine Is The Most Powerful And Effectual For Exciting And Inflaming The Passions Of Mankind, Being Common Fuel To Them All.

It Was Prettily Devised Of Aesop, The Fly Sat On The Axle Tree Of The Chariot Wheel And Said, What Dust Do I Raise!

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.

It Is In Life As It Is In Ways, The Shortest Way Is Commonly The Foulest, And Surely The Fairer Way Is Not Much About.

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