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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.

-Francis Bacon

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I Foresee It And

Francis Bacon

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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.

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I Think That One Of The Things Is That, If You Are Going To Decide To Be A Painter, You Have Got To Decide That You Are Not Going To Be Afraid Of Making A Fool Of Yourself. I Think Another Thing Is To Be Able To Find Subjects Which Really Absorb You To Try And Do. I Feel That Without A Subject You Automatically Go Back Into Decoration Because You Haven't Got The Subject Which Is Always Eating Into You To Bring It Back - And The Greatest Art Always Returns You To The Vulnerability Of The Human Situation.

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.

Who Then To Frail Mortality Shall Trust But Limns The Water, Or But Writes In Dust.

Come Home To Men's Business And Bosoms.

Spouses Are Great Impediments To Great Enterprises.

The Errors Of Young Men Are The Ruin Of Business, But The Errors Of Aged Men Amount To This, That More Might Have Been Done, Or Sooner.

Knowledge Hath In It Somewhat Of The Serpent, And Therefore Where It Entereth Into A Man It Makes Him Swell.

A Prudent Question Is One-half Of Wisdom.

Atheism Leads A Man To Sense, To Philosophy, To Natural Piety, To Laws, To Reputation: All Of Which May Be Guides To An Outward Moral Virtue.

In Every Great Time There Is Some One Idea At Work Which Is More Powerful Than Any Other, And Which Shapes The Events Of The Time And Determines Their Ultimate Issues.

The Desire Of Power In Excess Caused The Angels To Fall; The Desire Of Knowledge In Excess Caused Man To Fall: But In Charity There Is No Excess; Neither Can Angel Nor Man Come In Danger By It.

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

Moreover, The Works Already Known Are Due To Chance And Experiment Rather Than To Sciences; For The Sciences We Now Possess Are Merely Systems For The Nice Ordering And Setting Forth Of Things Already Invented; Not Methods Of Invention Or Directions For New Works.

There Is Nothing More Certain In Nature Than That It Is Impossible For Any Body To Be Utterly Annihilated.

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.

They Who Derive Their Worth From Their Ancestors Resemble Potatoes, The Most Valuable Part Of Which Is Underground.

There Are And Can Be Only Two Ways Of Searching Into And Discovering Truth. The One Flies From The Senses And Particulars To The Most General Axioms, And From These Principles, The Truth Of Which It Takes For Settled And Immovable, Proceeds To Judgment And To The Discovery Of Middle Axioms. And This Way Is Now In Fashion. The Other Derives Axioms From The Senses And Particulars, Rising By A Gradual And Unbroken Ascent, So That It Arrives At The Most General Axioms Last Of All. This Is The True Way, But As Yet Untried.

Photographs Are Not Only Points Of Reference... They're Often Triggers Of Ideas.

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

Again Men Have Been Kept Back As By A Kind Of Enchantment From Progress In Science By Reverence For Antiquity, By The Authority Of Men Counted Great In Philosophy, And Then By General Consent.

A Lie Faces God And Shrinks From Man.

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.

God Almighty First Planted A Garden. And Indeed It Is The Purest Of Human Pleasures. It Is The Greatest Refreshment To The Spirits Of Man, Without Which Buildings And Palaces Are But Gross Handiworks. And A Man Shall Ever See, That When Ages Grow To Civility And Elegancy, Men Come To Build Stately Sooner Than To Garden Finely, As If Gardening Were The Greater Perfection.

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

The Study Of Nature With A View To Works Is Engaged In By The Mechanic, The Mathematician, The Physician, The Alchemist, And The Magician; But By All As Things Now Are With Slight Endeavour And Scanty Success.

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.

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

Painting Is The Pattern Of One's Own Nervous System Being Projected On Canvas.

They Are Ill Discoverers That Think There Is No Land, When They Can See Nothing But Sea.

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.

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.

Consistency Is The Foundation Of Virtue.

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.'

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

For A Crowd Is Not Company; And Faces Are But A Gallery Of Pictures; And Talk But A Tinkling Cymbal, Where There Is No Love.

They Are The Best Physicians, Who Being Great In Learning Most Incline To The Traditions Of Experience, Or Being Distinguished In Practice Do Not Reflect The Methods And Generalities Of Art.

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.

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.

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

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

I Don't Think People Are Born Artists; I Think It Comes From A Mixture Of Your Surroundings, The People You Meet, And Luck.

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.

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

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

God's First Creature, Which Was Light.

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.

Doctor Johnson Said, That In Sickness There Were Three Things That Were Material; The Physician, The Disease, And The Patient: And If Any Two Of These Joined, Then They Get The Victory; For, Ne Hercules Quidem Contra Duos [not Even Hercules Himself Is A Match For Two]. If The Physician And The Patient Join, Then Down Goes The Disease; For Then The Patient Recovers: If The Physician And The Disease Join, That Is A Strong Disease; And The Physician Mistaking The Cure, Then Down Goes The Patient: If The Patient And The Disease Join, Then Down Goes The Physician; For He Is Discredited.

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

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

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

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.

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

He That Toucheth Pitch Shall Be Defiled Therewith.

It Cannot Be That Axioms Established By Argumentation Should Avail For The Discovery Of New Works, Since The Subtlety Of Nature Is Greater Many Times Over Than The Subtlety Of Argument. But Axioms Duly And Orderly Formed From Particulars Easily Discover The Way To New Particulars, And Thus Render Sciences Active.

It Cannot Be Denied That Outward Accidents Conduce Much To Fortune, Favor, Opportunity, Death Of Others, Occasion Fitting Virtue; But Chiefly, The Mold Of A Man's Fortune Is In His Own Hands

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.

The Man Who Fears No Truths Has Nothing To Fear From Lies.

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

Truth Is The Daughter Of Time, Not Of Authority.

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.

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.

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

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.

None Of The Affections Have Been Noted To Fascinate And Bewitch But Envy.

The Folly Of One Man Is The Fortune Of Another.

The Registering Of Doubts Hath Two Excellent Uses: The One, That It Saveth Philosophy From Errors And Falsehoods; When That Which Is Not Fully Appearing Is Not Collected Into Assertion, Whereby Error Might Draw Error, But Reserved In Doubt: The Other, That The Entry Of Doubts Are As So Many Suckers Or Sponges To Draw Use Of Knowledge; Insomuch As That Which, If Doubts Had Not Preceded, A Man Should Never Have Advised, But Passed It Over Without Note, By The Suggestion And Solicitation Of Doubts, Is Made To Be Attended And Applied.

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

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.

Princes Are Like Heavenly Bodies, Which Cause Good Or Evil Times, And Which Have Much Veneration, But No Rest.

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

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

Mind Your Own Business

Men Fear Death As Children Fear To Go In The Dark; And As That Natural Fear In Children Is Increased By Tales, So Is The Other.

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

It Is As Natural To Die As To Be Born; And To A Little Infant, Perhaps, The One Is As Painful As The Other.

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 Graceful And Pleasing Figure Is A Perpetual Letter Of Recommendation.

Those Herbs Which Perfume The Air Most Delightfully, Not Passed By As The Rest, But, Being Trodden Upon And Crushed, Are Three; That Is, Burnet, Wild Thyme And Watermints. Therefore, You Are To Set Whole Alleys Of Them, To Have The Pleasure When You Walk Or Tread.

Journeys At Youth Are Part Of The Education; But At Maturity, Are Part Of The Experience.

A Little Science Estranges A Man From God; A Lot Of Science Brings Him Back.

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.

Great Changes Are Easier Than Small Ones.

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.

Virtue Is Like A Rich Stone, Best Plain Set.

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

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.

Riches Are For Spending, And Spending For Honor And Good Actions; Therefore Extraordinary Expense Must Be Limited By The Worth Of The Occasion.

A Cat Will Never Drown If She Sees The Shore.

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.

People Prefer To Believe What They Want To Be True.

Art Is Man Added To Nature.

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

The Human Understanding, When Any Preposition Has Been Once Laid Down... Forces Everything Else To Add Fresh Support And Confirmation; And Although More Cogent And Abundant Instances May Exist To The Contrary, Yet It Either Does Not Observe Them Or It Despises Them, Or It Gets Rid Of And Rejects Them By Some Distinction, With Violent And Injurious Prejudice, Rather Than Sacrifice The Authority Of Its First Conclusions.

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.

The Worst Men Often Give The Best Advice.

There Is Nothing Makes A Man Suspect Much, More Than To Know Little, And Therefore Men Should Remedy Suspicion By Procuring To Know More, And Not Keep Their Suspicions In Smother.

The Ill And Unfit Choice Of Words Wonderfully Obstructs The Understanding.

By Indignities Men Come To Dignities.

He Of Whom Many Are Afraid Ought Himself To Fear Many.

Silence Is The Virtue Of Fools.

The Job Of The Artist Is Always To Deepen The Mystery.

I Paint For Myself. I Don't Know How To Do Anything Else, Anyway. Also I Have To Earn My Living, And Occupy Myself.

Nothing Is Pleasant That Is Not Spiced With Variety.

Variety Is The Spice Of Life

Deformed Persons Commonly Take Revenge On Nature.

Nor Do Apophthegms Only Serve For Ornament And Delight, But Also For Action And Civil Use, As Being The Edge-tools Of Speech Which Cut And Penetrate The Knots Of Business And Affairs: For Occasions Have Their Revolutions, And What Has Once Been Advantageously Used May Be So Again, Either As An Old Thing Or A New One.

Philosophers Make Imaginary Laws For Imaginary Commonwealths, And Their Discourses Are As The Stars, Which Give Little Light Because They Are So High.

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.

Everybody Has His Own Interpretation Of A Painting He Sees.

There Arises From A Bad And Unapt Formation Of Words A Wonderful Obstruction To The Mind.

States, As Great Engines, Move Slowly.

More Dangers Have Deceived Men Than Forced Them.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Mysteries Are Due To Secrecy.

I Have Often Thought Upon Death, And I Find It The Least Of All Evils.

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.

Nothing Destroys Authority More Than The Unequal And Untimely Interchange Of Power Stretched Too Far And Relaxed Too Much.

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

Look To Make Your Course Regular, That Men May Know Beforehand What They May Expect.

All Artists Are Vain, They Long To Be Recognized And To Leave Something To Posterity. They Want To Be Loved, And At The Same Time They Want To Be Free. But Nobody Is Free.

Defer Not Charities Till Death; For Certainly, If A Man Weigh It Rightly, He That Doth So Is Rather Liberal Of Another Man's Than Of His Own.

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

Man Was Formed For Society.

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

The Fortune Which Nobody Sees Makes A Person Happy And Unenvied.

Habit, If Wisely And Skillfully Formed, Becomes Truly A Second Nature; But Unskillfully And Unmethodically Depicted, It Will Be As It Were An Ape Of Nature, Which Imitates Nothing To The Life, But Only Clumsily And Awkwardly

The Mystery Lies In The Irrationality By Which You Make Appearance - If It Is Not Irrational, You Make Illustration.

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

It's Not What We Eat But What We Digest That Makes Us Strong; Not What We Gain But What We Save That Makes Us Rich; Not What We Read But What We Remember That Makes Us Learned; And Not What We Profess But What We Practice That Gives Us Integrity.

A Man Cannot Speak To His Son, But As A Father; To His Wife, But As A Husband; To His Enemy, But Upon Terms: Whereas A Friend May Speak, As The Case Requires, And Not As It Sorteth With The Person.

Fortune Makes Him Fool, Whom She Makes Her Darling.

Suspicion Amongst Thoughts Are Like Bats Amongst Birds, They Never Fly By Twilight.

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.

Cleanness Of Body Was Ever Deemed To Proceed From A Due Reverence To God.

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

Life Is A Marshmallow, Easy To Chew But Hard To Swallow.

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.

It Was Well Said That Envy Keeps No Holidays.

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

But This Is That Which Will Dignify And Exalt Knowledge: If Contemplation And Action Be More Nearly And Straitly Conjoined And United Together Than They Have Been: A Conjunction Like Unto That Of The Highest Planets, Saturn, The Planet Of Rest And Contemplation, And Jupiter, The Planet Of Civil Society And Action.

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

Books Will Speak Plain When Counselors Blanch.

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

It's Such An Extraordinary Supple Medium That You Never Do Quite Know What Paint Will Do.

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

Fashion Is Only The Attempt To Realize Art In Living Forms And Social Intercourse.

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?

The Sun, Though It Passes Through Dirty Places, Yet Remains As Pure As Before.

The Worst Solitute Is To Be Destitute Of True Friendship.

If Any Human Being Earnestly Desire To Push On To New Discoveries Instead Of Just Retaining And Using The Old; To Win Victories Over Nature As A Worker Rather Than Over Hostile Critics As A Disputant; To Attain, In Fact, Clear And Demonstrative Knowlegde Instead Of Attractive And Probable Theory; We Invite Him As A True Son Of Science To Join Our Ranks.

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

The World's A Bubble, And The Life Of Man, Less Than A Span.

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.

When I Paint I Am Ageless, I Just Have The Pleasure Or The Difficulty Of Painting.

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

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

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.

Truth Is So Hard To Tell, It Sometimes Needs Fiction To Make It Plausible.

I Would Like My Pictures To Look As If A Human Being Had Passed Between Them, Like A Snail, Leaving A Trail Of The Human Presence And Memory Trace Of Past Events, As The Snail Leaves Its Slime.

Truth May Perhaps Come To The Price Of A Pearl, That Showeth Best By Day; But It Will Not Rise To The Price Of A Diamond Or Carbuncle, That Showeth Best In Varied Lights. A Mixture Of A Lie Doth Ever Add Pleasure. Doth Any Man Doubt That, If There Were Taken Out Of Men's Minds Vain Opinions, Flattering Hopes, False Valuations, Imaginations As One Would, And The Like, But It Would Leave The Minds Of A Number Of Men Poor Shrunken Things, Full Of Melancholy And Indisposition, And Unpleasing To Themselves?

The Greatest Trust Between Man And Man Is The Trust Of Giving Counsel.

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.

There Is A Cunning Which We In England Call The Rning Of The Cat In The Pan.

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

... Wife And Children Are A Kind Of Discipline Of Humanity.

You Can't Be More Horrific Than Life Itself.

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

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.

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.

Prosperity Is The Blessing Of The Old Testament; Adversity Is The Blessing Of The New.

Christian Inspirational

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

There Is Little Friendship In The World, And Least Of All Between Equals.

It Is Not The Lie That Passeth Through The Mind, But The Lie That Sinketh In And Settleth In It, That Doth The Hurt.

It Is The Peculiar And Perpetual Error Of The Human Understanding To Be More Moved And Excited By Affirmatives Than By Negatives

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

Overcoming Doubt

Truth ... Is The Sovereign Good Of Human Nature.

The Lame Man Who Keeps The Right Road Outstrips The Runner Who Takes The Wrong One.

Who Questions Much, Shall Learn Much, And Retain Much.

Questions And Answers

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

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

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.

Speech Of Yourself Ought To Be Seldom And Well Chosen.

To Suffering There Is A Limit; To Fearing, None.

It Has Well Been Said That The Arch-flatterer, With Whom All Petty Flatterers Have Intelligence, Is A Man's Self.

If Money Be Not Thy Servant, It Will Be Thy Master.

All Good Moral Philosophy Is ... But The Handmaid To Religion.

The Root Of All Superstition Is That Men Observe When A Thing Hits, But Not When It Misses.

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.

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.

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.

A Man That Studieth Revenge Keeps His Own Wounds Green.

I Would Live To Study, Not Study To Live.

The Poets Did Well To Conjoin Music And Medicine, In Apollo, Because The Office Of Medicine Is But To Tune The Curious Harp Of Man's Body And Reduce It To Harmony.

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

Some Men Covet Knowledge Out Of A Natural Curiosity And Inquisitive Temper; Some To Entertain The Mind With Variety And Delight; Some For Ornament And Reputation; Some For Victory And Contention; Many For Lucre And A Livelihood; And But Few For Employing The Divine Gift Of Reason To The Use And Benefit Of Mankind.

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

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.

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