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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.

-Francis Bacon

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Moreover, The Works Already

Francis Bacon

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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.

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

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

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.

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

A Cat Will Never Drown If She Sees The Shore.

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.

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

Everybody Has His Own Interpretation Of A Painting He Sees.

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.

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

In Mathematics I Can Report No Deficiency, Except It Be That Men Do Not Sufficiently Understand The Excellent Use Of Pure Mathematics.

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

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

To Seek To Extinguish Anger Utterly Is But A Bravery Of The Stoics. We Have Better Oracles: 'be Angry, But Sin Not.' 'let Not The Sun Go Down Upon Your Wrath.'

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Perils Commonly Ask To Be Paid In Pleasures.

The Cord Breaketh At Last By The Weakest Pull.

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

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.

More Dangers Have Deceived Men Than Forced Them.

It Is Impossible To Love And To Be Wise.

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

When A Traveler Returneth Home, Let Him Not Leave The Countries Where He Hath Traveled Altogether Behind Him.

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

Reading Maketh A Full Man.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

The Natures And Dispositions Of Men Are, Not Without Truth, Distinguished From The Predominance Of The Planets.

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.

They Are Happy Men Whose Natures Sort With Their Vocations.

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

Overcoming Doubt

If The Hill Will Not Come To Mahomet, Mahomet Will Go To The Hill.

If You Can Talk About It, Why Paint It?

Truth Is The Daughter Of Time, Not Of Authority.

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

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.

Salomon Saith, There Is No New Thing Upon The Earth. So That As Plato Had An Imagination, That All Knowledge Was But Remembrance; So Salomon Giveth His Sentence, That All Novelty Is But Oblivion.

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.

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

The Light That A Man Receives By Counsel From Another Is Drier And Purer Than That Which Comes From His Own Understanding And Judgment, Which Is Ever Infused And Drenched In His Affections And Customs.

There Is No Great Concurrence Between Learning And Wisdom.

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.

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.

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

A Lie Faces God And Shrinks From Man.

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

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

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

Revenge Is A Kind Of Wild Justice.

In Philosophy, The Contemplations Of Man Do Either Penetrate Unto God, Or Are Circumferred To Nature, Or Are Reflected And Reverted Upon Himself. Out Of Which Several Inquiries There Do Arise Three Knowledges, Divine Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, And Human Philosophy Or Humanity. For All Things Are Marked And Stamped With This Triple Character Of The Power Of God, The Difference Of Nature And The Use Of Man.

I Don't Believe Art Is Available; It's Rare And Curious And Should Be Completely Isolated; One Is More Aware Of Its Magic The More It Is Isolated.

There Are Many Wise Men That Have Secret Hearts And Transparent Countenances.

Speech Of Yourself Ought To Be Seldom And Well Chosen.

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.

Spouses Are Great Impediments To Great Enterprises.

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.

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.

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.

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

Nothing Is To Be Feared But Fear.

Generally, Youth Is Like The First Cogitations, Not So Wise As The Second. For There Is A Youth In Thoughts, As Well As In Ages. And Yet The Invention Of Young Men, Is More Lively Than That Of Old; And Imaginations Stream Into Their Minds Better, And, As It Were, More Divinely.

Time Is The Author Of Authors.

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.

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

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

For Knowledge, Too, Is Itself Power.

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.

Great Art Is Always A Way Of Concentrating, Reinventing What Is Called Fact, What We Know Of Our Existence- A Reconcentration… Tearing Away The Veils, The Attitudes People Acquire Of Their Time And Earlier Time. Really Good Artists Tear Down Those Veils

We Are Much Beholden To Machiavel And Others, That Write What Men Do, And Not What They Ought To Do.

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.'

Man Was Formed For Society.

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

Man Seeketh In Society Comfort, Use And Protection.

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

Money Is A Good Servant, A Dangerous Master.

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.

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

Always Let Losers Have Their Words.

Whatever You Can, Count.

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."

Natural Abilities Are Like Natural Plants, That Need Pruning By Study; And Studies Themselves Do Give Forth Directions Too Much At Large, Except They Be Bounded In By Experience.

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

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

The Men Of Experiment Are Like The Ant, They Only Collect And Use; The Reasoners Resemble Spiders, Who Make Cobwebs Out Of Their Own Substance. But The Bee Takes The Middle Course, It Gathers Its Material From The Flowers Of The Garden And Field, But Transforms And Digests It By A Power Of Its Own.

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

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

Christian Inspirational

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.

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.

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

I Will Never Be An Old Man. To Me, Old Age Is Always 15 Years Older Than I Am.

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

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.

You Can't Be More Horrific Than Life Itself.

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.

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.

Jesus Would Have Been One Of The Best Photographers That Ever Existed. He Was Always Looking At The Beauty Of People Souls. In Fact Jesus Was Constantly Making Pictures Of God In People's Life By Looking At Their Souls And Exposing Them To His Light.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

The Worst Men Often Give The Best Advice.

There Is A Difference Between Happiness And Wisdom: He That Thinks Himself The Happiest Man Is Really So; But He That Thinks Himself The Wisest Is Generally The Greatest Fool.

Custom Is The Principle Magistrate Of Man's Life.

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.

God's First Creature, Which Was Light.

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

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.

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.

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

The Place Of Justice Is A Hallowed Place.

Time Is The Greatest Innovator.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Without Friends The World Is But A Wilderness.

Next To Religion, Let Your Care Be To Promote Justice.

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.

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.

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.'

As The Births Of Living Creatures At First Are Ill-shapen, So Are All Innovations, Which Are The Births Of Time.

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

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.

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

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

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.

I'll Follow, As They Say, For Reward. He That Rewards Me, God Reward Him. If I Do Grow Great, I'll Grow Less; For I'll Purge, And Leave Sack, And Live Cleanly, As A Nobleman Should Do.

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.

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.

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.

Medicine Is A Science Which Hath Been (as We Have Said) More Professed Than Laboured, And Yet More Laboured Than Advanced: The Labour Having Been, In My Judgment, Rather In Circle Than In Progression. For I Find Much Iteration, But Small Addition. It Considereth Causes Of Diseases, With The Occasions Or Impulsions; The Diseases Themselves, With The Accidents; And The Cures, With The Preservation.

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

We Must See Whether The Same Clock With Weights Will Go Faster At The Top Of A Mountain Or At The Bottom Of A Mine; It Is Probable, If The Pull Of The Weights Decreases On The Mountain And Increases In The Mine, That The Earth Has Real Attraction.

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

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.

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

Another Argument Of Hope May Be Drawn From This-that Some Of The Inventions Already Known Are Such As Before They Were Discovered It Could Hardly Have Entered Any Man's Head To Think Of; They Would Have Been Simply Set Aside As Impossible. For In Conjecturing What May Be Men Set Before Them The Example Of What Has Been, And Divine Of The New With An Imagination Preoccupied And Colored By The Old; Which Way Of Forming Opinions Is Very Fallacious, For Streams That Are Drawn From The Springheads Of Nature Do Not Always Run In The Old Channels.

Truth Is A Naked And Open Daylight, That Does Not Show The Masques, And Mummeries, And Triumphs Of The World, Half So Stately And Daintily As Candle-lights. . . A Mixture Of A Lie Doth Ever Add Pleasure

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

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.

Praise Is The Reflection Of Virtue.

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.

Much Bending Breaks The Bow; Much Unbending The Mind.

A Man That Hath No Virtue In Himself, Ever Envieth Virtue In Others. For Men's Minds, Will Either Feed Upon Their Own Good, Or Upon Others' Evil; And Who Wanteth The One, Will Prey Upon The Other; And Whoso Is Out Of Hope, To Attain To Another's Virtue, Will Seek To Come At Even Hand, By Depressing Another's Fortune.

Money Is A Great Servant But A Bad Master.

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.

To Spend Too Much Time In Studies Is Sloth.

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

States Are Great Engines Moving Slowly.

Silence Is The Virtue Of Fools.

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

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.

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

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.

They That Reverence To Much Old Times Are But A Scorn To The New.

The Worst Solitude Is To Have No Real Friendships.

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

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

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.

A Prudent Question Is One-half Of Wisdom.

Nature, To Be Commanded, Must Be Obeyed.

...to Invent Is To Discover That We Know Not, And Not To Recover Or Resummon That Which We Already Know

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

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.

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

The Divisions Of Science Are Not Like Different Lines That Meet In One Angle, But Rather Like The Branches Of Trees That Join In One Trunk.

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

Truth Is A Naked And Open Daylight

As Is The Garden Such Is The Gardener. A Man's Nature Runs Either To Herbs Or Weeds.

It Was Well Said That Envy Keeps No Holidays.

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

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 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.

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

For My Name And Memory I Leave To Men's Charitable Speeches, And To Foreign Nations And The Next Ages.

The Folly Of One Man Is The Fortune Of Another.

Imagination Was Given To Man To Compensate Him For What He Is Not; A Sense Of Humor To Console Him For What He Is.

To Spend Too Much Time In Studies Is Sloth; To Use Them Too Much For Ornament Is Affection; To Make Judgment Wholly By Their Rules Is The Humor Of A Scholar.

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.

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.

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