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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.

-Francis Bacon

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I Have To Hope

Francis Bacon

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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.

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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.

Knowledge 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.

Time Is The Author Of Authors.

Virtue Is Like A Rich Stone, Best Plain Set.

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

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.

A Wise Man Will Make More Opportunities Than He Finds.

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.

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

Vices Of The Time; Vices Of The Man.

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

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

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

Always Let Losers Have Their Words.

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.'

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.

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

Nature Is Often Hidden, Sometimes Overcome, Seldom Extinguished.

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

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.

Fortune Makes Him Fool, Whom She Makes Her Darling.

Men On Their Side Must Force Themselves For A While To Lay Their Notions By And Begin To Familiarize Themselves With Facts.

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

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.

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

For It Is Most True That A Natural And Secret Hatred And Aversation Towards Society In Any Man, Hath Somewhat Of The Savage Beast.

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

The Genius Of Any Single Man Can No More Equal Learning, Than A Private Purse Hold Way With The Exchequer.

I Usually Accept Bribes From Both Sides So That Tainted Money Can Never Influence My Decision.

Nakedness Is Uncomely, As Well In Mind As Body, And It Addeth No Small Reverence To Men's Manners And Actions If They Be Not Altogether Open. Therefore Set It Down: That A Habit Of Secrecy Is Both Politic And Moral.

I Confess That I Have As Vast Contemplative Ends, As I Have Moderate Civil Ends: For I Have Taken All Knowledge To Be My Province.

Science Is But An Image Of The Truth.

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

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

Acorns Were Good Until Bread Was Found.

Prosperity Is Not Without Many Fears And Distastes; Adversity Not Without Many Comforts And Hopes.

A Principal Fruit Of Friendship, Is The Ease And Discharge Of The Fullness And Swellings Of The Heart, Which Passions Of All Kinds Do Cause And Induce.

The Breath Of Flowers Is Far Sweeter In The Air Than In The Hand.

All Bravery Stands Upon Comparisons.

In Charity There Is No Excess.

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

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.

Beauty Itself Is But The Sensible Image Of The Infinite.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

If A Man Be Gracious And Courteous To Strangers, It Shows He Is A Citizen Of The World.

For First Of All We Must Prepare A Natural And Experimental History, Sufficient And Good; And This Is The Foundation Of All; For We Are Not To Imagine Or Suppose, But To Discover, What Nature Does Or May Be Made To Do.

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

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

Time Is The Greatest Innovator.

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

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

Since Custom Is The Principal Magistrate Of Man's Life, Let Men By All Means Endeavor To Obtain Good Customs.

Truth Is A Naked And Open Daylight

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

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.

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.

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.

People Prefer To Believe What They Want To Be True.

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

To Know Truly Is To Know By Causes.

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

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

Friends Are Thieves Of Time.

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

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

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.

Nothing Is Terrible Except Fear Itself.

Lastly, I Would Address One General Admonition To All: That They Consider What Are The True Ends Of Knowledge, And That They Seek It Not Either For Pleasure Of The Mind, Or For Contention, Or For Superiority To Others, Or For Profit, Or Fame, Or Power, Or Any Of These Inferior Things: But For The Benefit And Use Of Life; And That They Perfect And Govern It In Charity.

Money Is Like Manure, Of Very Little Use Except It Be Spread.

If Vices Were Profitable, The Virtuous Man Would Be The Sinner.

The Worst Solitute Is To Be Destitute Of True Friendship.

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

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.

He That Hath A Wife And Children Hath Given Hostages To Fortune.

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.

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.

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

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.

It's Always Hopeless To Talk About Painting - One Never Does Anything But Talk Around It.

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.

But We Are Not Dedicating Or Building Any Capitol Or Pyramid To Human Pride, But Found A Holy Temple In The Human Intellect, On The Model Of The Universe... For Whatever Is Worthy Of Existence Is Worthy Of Knowledge-which Is The Image (or Echo) Of Existence.

Anger Is Certainly A Kind Of Baseness; As It Appears Well In The Weakness Of Those Subjects In Whom It Reigns; Children, Women, Old Folks, Sick Folks. Only Men Must Beware, That They Carry Their Anger Rather With Scorn, Than With Fear; So That They May Seem Rather To Be Above The Injury, Than Below It; Which Is A Thing Easily Done, If A Man Will Give Law To Himself In It.

One Of The Fathers Saith . . . That Old Men Go To Death, And Death Comes To Young Men.

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

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.

Certainly Man Is Of Kin To The Beasts By His Body; And If He Be Not Kin To God By His Spirit, He Is A Base And Ignoble Creature.

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.

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

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

I Regret Not Starting To Paint Earlier...it Is One Of The Few Things I Do Regret.

It Was A High Speech Of Seneca That "the Good Things Which Belong To Prosperity Are To Be Wished, But The Good Things That Belong To Adversity Are To Be Admired."

Since My Logic Aims To Teach And Instruct The Understanding, Not That It May With The Slender Tendrils Of The Mind Snatch At And Lay Hold Of Abstract Notions (as The Common Logic Does), But That It May In Very Truth Dissect Nature, And Discover The Virtues And Actions Of Bodies, With Their Laws As Determined In Matter; So That This Science Flows Not Merely From The Nature Of The Mind, But Also From The Nature Of Things.

Deformed Persons Commonly Take Revenge On Nature.

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

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.

There Is No Secrecy Comparable To Celerity.

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

Of All Virtues And Dignities Of The Mind, Goodness Is The Greatest, Being The Character Of The Deity; And Without It, Man Is A Busy, Mischievous, Wretched Thing.

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

Men Are Rather Beholden ... Generally To Chance Or Anything Else, Than To Logic, For The Invention Of Arts And Sciences.

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.

Nothing Is More Pleasant To The Eye Than Green Grass Kept Finely Shorn.

States, As Great Engines, Move Slowly.

To Spend Too Much Time In Studies Is Sloth.

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

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

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

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

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

A Young Man Not Yet, An Elder Man Not At All.

Whence We See Spiders, Flies, Or Ants Entombed And Preserved Forever In Amber, A More Than Royal Tomb.

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.

If You Can Talk About It, Why Paint It?

What Is Truth? Said Jesting Pilate; And Would Not Stay For An Answer.

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

There Is Superstition In Avoiding Superstition.

A Lie Faces God And Shrinks From Man.

God Hangs The Greatest Weights Upon The Smallest Wires.

This Is Certain, That A Man That Studieth Revenge Keeps His Wounds Green, Which Otherwise Would Heal And Do Well.

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

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

The Subtlety Of Nature Is Greater Many Times Over Than The Subtlety Of The Senses And Understanding.

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.

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

There Is No Great Concurrence Between Learning And Wisdom.

I Believe In Deeply Ordered Chaos

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.

The End Of Our Foundation Is The Knowledge Of Causes; And Secret Motions Of Things; And The Enlarging Of The Bounds Of Human Empire, To The Effecting Of All Things Possible.

Silence Is The Virtue Of Fools.

The Dignity Of This End Of Endowment Of Man's Life With New Commodity Appeareth By The Estimation That Antiquity Made Of Such As Guided Thereunto ; For Whereas Founders Of States, Lawgivers, Extirpators Of Tyrants, Fathers Of The People, Were Honoured But With The Titles Of Demigods, Inventors Ere Ever Consecrated Among The Gods Themselves.

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.

I Use All Sorts Of Things To Work With: Old Brooms, Old Sweaters, And All Kinds Of Peculiar Tools And Materials... I Paint To Excite Myself, And Make Something For Myself.

In All Superstition Wise Men Follow Fools.

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

The Human Understanding Of Its Own Nature Is Prone To Suppose The Existence Of More Order And Regularity In The World Than It Finds.

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

The Cord Breaketh At Last By The Weakest Pull.

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.

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.

God's First Creature, Which Was Light.

There Is No Passion In The Mind Of Man So Weak, But It Mates And Masters The Fear Of Death . . . Revenge Triumphs Over Death; Love Slights It; Honor Aspireth To It; Grief Flieth To It.

First The Amendment Of Their Own Minds. For The Removal Of The Impediments Of The Mind Will Sooner Clear The Passages Of Fortune Than The Obtaining Fortune Will Remove The Impediments Of The Mind.

I Hold Every Man A Debtor To His Profession.

The Remedy Is Worse Than The Disease.

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

Hope Is A Good Breakfast, But It Is A Bad Supper.

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.

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.

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

Antiquities, Or Remnants Of History, Are, As Was Said, Tanquam Tabula Naufragii: When Industrious Persons, By An Exact And Scrupulous Diligence And Observation, Out Of Monuments, Names, Words, Proverbs, Traditions, Private Records And Evidences, Fragments Of Stories, Passages Of Books That Concern Not Story, And The Like, Do Save And Recover Somewhat From The Deluge Of Time.

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

Truth Is A Good Dog; But Always Beware Of Barking Too Close To The Heels Of An Error, Lest You Get Your Brains Kicked Out.

Young People Are Fitter To Invent Than To Judge; Fitter For Execution Than For Counsel; And More Fit For New Projects Than For Settled Business.

All Authority Must Be Out Of A Man's Self, Turned . . . Either Upon An Art, Or Upon A Man.

Books Must Follow Sciences, And Not Sciences Books.

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

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

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

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

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.

Studies Perfect Nature And Are Perfected Still By Experience.

Because The Acts Or Events Of True History Have Not That Magnitude Which Satisfieth The Mind Of Man, Poesy Feigneth Acts And Events Greater And More Heroical.

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.

A Forbidden Writing Is Thought To Be A Certain Spark Of Truth, That Flies Up In The Face Of Them Who Seek To Tread It Out.

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.

Riches Are A Good Hand Maiden, But A Poor Mistress.

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?

One Of The Seven [wise Men Of Greece] Was Wont To Say: That Laws Were Like Cobwebs, Where The Small Flies Are Caught And The Great Break Through.

The Only Really Interesting Thing Is What Happens Between Two People In A Room.

Reading Maketh A Full Man; And Writing An Axact Man. And, Therefore, If A Man Write Little, He Need Have A Present Wit; And If He Read Little, He Need Have Much Cunning To Seem To Know Which He Doth Not.

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

For There Is A Great Difference In Delivery Of The Mathematics , Which Are The Most Abstracted Of Knowledges, And Policy , Which Is The Most Immersed. And Howsoever Contention Hath Been Moved , Touching A Uniformity Of Method In Multiformity Of Matter, Yet We See How That Opinion, Besides The Weakness Of It, Hath Been Of Ill Desert Towards Learning, As That Which Taketh The Way To Reduce Learning To Certain Empty And Barren Generalities; Being But The Very Husks And Shells Of Sciences, All The Kernel Being Forced Out And Expulsed With The Torture And Press Of The Method.

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

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.

Great Changes Are Easier Than Small Ones.

Silence Is The Sleep That Nourishes Wisdom.

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

Revenge Is A Kind Of Wild Justice.

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.

Seek Not Proud Riches, But Such As Thou Mayest Get Justly, Use Soberly, Distribute Cheerfully, And Leave Contentedly.

Truth Emerges More Readily From Error Than From Confusion.

Croesus Said To Cambyses; That Peace Was Better Than War; Because In Peace The Sons Did Bury Their Fathers, But In Wars The Fathers Did Bury Their Sons.

The Place Of Justice Is A Hallowed Place.

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.

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

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.

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.'

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.

We Cannot Command Nature Except By Obeying Her.

Changing Environment

Nobility Of Birth Commonly Abateth Industry.

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.

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.

In Taking Revenge, A Man Is But Even With His Enemy; But In Passing It Over, He Is Superior.

It Is Impossible To Love And To Be Wise.

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