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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.'

-Francis Bacon

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Mahomet Made The People

Francis Bacon

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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.'

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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.

No Pleasure Is Comparable To The Standing Upon The Vantage-ground Of Truth.

Inspirational Life

All Will Come Out In The Washing.

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

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

I Want A Very Ordered Image, But I Want It To Come About By Chance.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Praise From The Common People Is Generally False, And Rather Follows The Vain Than The Virtuous.

I Loathe My Own Face, And I've Done Self-portraits Because I've Had Nobody Else To Do.

If We Do Not Maintain Justice, Justice Will Not Maintain Us.

Criminal Justice

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 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.

If Money Be Not Thy Servant, It Will Be Thy Master. The Covetous Man Cannot So Properly Be Said To Possess Wealth, As That May Be Said To Possess Him.

I Want To Make Portraits And Images. I Don't Know How. Out Of Despair, I Just Use Paint Anyway. Suddenly The Things You Make Coagulate And Take On Just The Shape You Intend. Totally Accurate Marks, Which Are Outside Representational Marks.

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 Cord Breaketh At Last By The Weakest Pull.

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

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

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

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

States, As Great Engines, Move Slowly.

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

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.

If We Are To Achieve Things Never Before Accomplished We Must Employ Methods Never Before Attempted

Reading Maketh A Full Man.

...neither Is It Possible To Discover The More Remote And Deeper Parts Of Any Science, If You Stand But Upon The Level Of The Same Science, And Ascend Not To A Higher Science.

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.

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

Spouses Are Great Impediments To Great Enterprises.

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

Painting Gave Meaning To My Life Which Without It Would Not Have Had

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

The Correlative To Loving Our Neighbors As Ourselves Is Hating Ourselves As We Hate Our Neighbors.

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

Money Is Like Muck, Not Good Unless Spread.

Change Your Attitude

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

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.

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.

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

Art Is Man Added To Nature.

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.

I Hold Every Man A Debtor To His Profession.

It Is Good Discretion Not Make Too Much Of Any Man At The First; Because One Cannot Hold Out That Proportion.

More Dangers Have Deceived Men Than Forced Them.

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

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.

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.

Time Is The Greatest Innovator.

My Painting Is Not Violent, It's Life That Is Violent. Even Within The Most Beautiful Landscape, In The Trees, Under The Leaves, The Insects Are Eating Each Other; Violence Is A Part Of Life. We Are Born With A Scream; We Come Into Life With A Scream And Maybe Love Is A Mosquito Net Between The Fear Of Living And The Fear Of Death.

The Rising Unto Place Is Laborious, And By Pains Men Come To Greater Pains; And It Is Sometimes Base, And By Indignities Men Come To Dignities. The Standing Is Slippery, And The Regress Is Either A Downfall, Or At Least An Eclipse.

No Artist Knows In His Own Lifetime Whether What He Does Will Be The Slightest Good, Because It Takes At Least Seventy-five To A Hundred Years Before The Thing Begins To Sort Itself Out.

Wonder Is The Seed Of Knowledge

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.

To Know Truly Is To Know By Causes.

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

All Of Our Actions Take Their Hue From The Complexion Of The Heart, As Landscapes Their Variety From Light.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Gardening Is The Purest Of Human Pleasures.

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.

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.

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

The Human Understanding When It Has Once Adopted An Opinion (either As Being The Received Opinion Or As Being Agreeable To Itself) Draws All Things Else To Support And Agree With It.

It Is As Hard And Severe A Thing To Be A True Politician As To Be Truly Moral.

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

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

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.

I Had Rather Believe All The Fables In The Legend, And The Talmud, And The Alcoran, Than That This Universal Frame Is Without A Mind.

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

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

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

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

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.

Very Few People Have A Natural Feeling For Painting, And So, Of Course, They Naturally Think That Painting Is An Expression Of The Artist's Mood. But It Rarely Is. Very Often He May Be In Greatest Despair And Be Painting His Happiest Paintings.

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.

God Hangs The Greatest Weights Upon The Smallest Wires.

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.

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.

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.

Fortune Makes Him Fool, Whom She Makes Her Darling.

They Are Happy Men Whose Natures Sort With Their Vocations.

A Much Talking Judge Is An Ill-tuned Cymbal.

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.

Silence Is The Sleep That Nourishes Wisdom.

The Partitions Of Knowledge Are Not Like Several Lines That Meet In One Angle, And So Touch Not In A Point; But Are Like Branches Of A Tree, That Meet In A Stem, Which Hath A Dimension And Quantity Of Entireness And Continuance, Before It Come To Discontinue And Break Itself Into Arms And Boughs.

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

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.

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.

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

For Cleanness Of Body Was Ever Esteemed To Proceed From A Due Reverence To God, To Society, And To Ourselves.

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

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.

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

Nobility Of Birth Commonly Abateth Industry.

The Pencil Of The Holy Ghost Hath Labored More In Describing The Afflictions Of Job Than The Felicities Of Solomon.

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

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

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.

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

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

Questions And Answers

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Mysteries Are Due To Secrecy.

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.

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

For What A Man Would Like To Be True, That He More Readily Believes.

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

Certainly Virtue Is Like Precious Odors, Most Fragrant When They Are Incensed, Or Crushed: For Prosperity Doth Best Discover Vice, But Adversity Doth Best Discover Virtue.

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.

It Is Rightly Laid Down That 'true Knowledge Is Knowledge By Causes'. Also The Establishment Of Four Causes Is Not Bad: Material, Formal, Efficient And Final.

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.

I Do Not Believe That Any Man Fears To Be Dead, But Only The Stroke Of Death.

Hurl Your Calumnies Boldly; Something Is Sure To Stick.

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.

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.'

Nothing Is Terrible Except Fear Itself.

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

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

He That Will Not Apply New Remedies Must Expect New Evils; For Time Is The Greatest Innovator.

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.

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

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

Man Was Formed For Society.

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

All Painting Is An Accident. But It's Also Not An Accident, Because One Must Select What Part Of The Accident One Chooses To Preserve.

When Christ Came Into The World, Peace Was Sung; And When He Went Out Of The World, Peace Was Bequeathed.

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.

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

If A Man's Wit Be Not Apt To Distinguish Or Find Differences, Let Him Study The Schoolmen; For They Are Cymini Sectores, Splitters Of Hairs.

I Would By All Means Have Men Beware, Lest Æsop's Pretty Fable Of The Fly That Sate [sic] On The Pole Of A Chariot At The Olympic Races And Said, 'what A Dust Do I Raise,' Be Verified In Them. For So It Is That Some Small Observation, And That Disturbed Sometimes By The Instrument, Sometimes By The Eye, Sometimes By The Calculation, And Which May Be Owing To Some Real Change In The Heaven, Raises New Heavens And New Spheres And Circles.

So That Every Wand Or Staff Of Empire Is Forsooth Curved At Top.

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

Let Every Student Of Nature Take This As His Rule, That Whatever The Mind Seizes Upon With Particular Satisfaction Is To Be Held In Suspicion.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

If I Sit And Daydream, The Images Rush By Like A Succession Of Colored Slides.

There Is No Secrecy Comparable To Celerity.

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

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.

Nothing Doth So Much Keep Men Out Of The Church, And Drive Men Out Of The Church, As Breach Of Unity.

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.

Secrecy In Suits Goes A Great Way Towards Success.

Painting Today Is Pure Intuition And Luck And Taking Advantage Of What Happens When You Splash The Stuff Down.

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

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

In All Superstition Wise Men Follow Fools.

The Mold Of Our Fortunes Is In Our Own Hands.

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

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."

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.

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.

Acorns Were Good Until Bread Was Found.

...those Experiments Be Not Only Esteemed Which Have An Immediate And Present Use, But Those Principally Which Are Of Most Universal Consequence For Invention Of Other Experiments, And Those Which Give More Light To The Invention Of Causes; For The Invention Of The Mariner's Needle, Which Giveth The Direction, Is Of No Less Benefit For Navigation Than The Invention Of The Sails, Which Give The Motion.

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.

A Good Conscience Is A Continual Feast.

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.

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.

People Prefer To Believe What They Want To Be True.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Man Seeketh In Society Comfort, Use And Protection.

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.

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

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

Mark What A Generosity And Courage (a Dog) Will Put On When He Finds Himself Maintained By A Man, Who To Him Is Instead Of A God

Truth Is The Daughter Of Time, Not Of Authority.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

Mind Your Own Business

Begin Doing What You Want To Do Now. We Are Not Living In Eternity. We Have Only This Moment, Sparkling Like A Star In Our Hand - And Melting Like A Snowflake.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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