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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.

-Francis Bacon

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No Artist Knows In

Francis Bacon

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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.

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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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then Bless Thy Secret Growth, Nor Catch At Noise, But Thrive Unseen And Dumb; Keep Clean, Be As Fruit, Earn Life, And Watch, Till The White-wing'd Reapers Come.

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

If You Can Talk About It, Why Paint It?

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

States, As Great Engines, Move Slowly.

Rebellions Of The Belly Are The Worst.

The Genius, Wit, And The Spirit Of A Nation Are Discovered By Their Proverbs.

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

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.

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.

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

Children Sweeten Labours, But They Make Misfortunes More Bitter.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Man Prefers To Believe What He Prefers To Be True.

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

One Always Starts Work With The Subject, No Matter How Tenuous It Is, And One Constructs An Artificial Structure By Which One Can Trap The Reality Of The Subject-matter That One Has Started From.

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.

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.

Money Is A Good Servant, A Dangerous Master.

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

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

I Work For Posterity, These Things Requiring Ages For Their Accomplishment.

There Is No Great Concurrence Between Learning And Wisdom.

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Civil Business; What First? Boldness; What Second And Third? Boldness: And Yet Boldness Is A Child Of Ignorance And Baseness.

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.

To Know Truly Is To Know By Causes.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Great Riches Have Sold More Men Than They Have Bought.

The Best Armor Is To Keep Out Of Gunshot.

He Who Desires Solitude Is Either An Animal Or A God.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Without Friends The World Is But A Wilderness.

It Was Well Said That Envy Keeps No Holidays.

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

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.

Great Boldness Is Seldom Without Some Absurdity.

There Is Superstition In Avoiding Superstition.

Discretion In Speech Is More Than Eloquence.

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.

To Spend Too Much Time In Studies Is Sloth.

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

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.'

Virtue Is Like A Rich Stone, Best Plain Set.

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

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.

Man Seeketh In Society Comfort, Use And Protection.

The Human Understanding Is Unquiet; It Cannot Stop Or Rest, And Still Presses Onward, But In Vain. Therefore It Is That We Cannot Conceive Of Any End Or Limit To The World, But Always As Of Necessity It Occurs To Us That There Is Something Beyond... But He Is No Less An Unskilled And Shallow Philosopher Who Seeks Causes Of That Which Is Most General, Than He Who In Things Subordinate And Subaltern Omits To Do So

There Is No Comparison Between That Which Is Lost By Not Succeeding And That Which Is Lost By Not Trying.

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

I Believe In Deeply Ordered Chaos

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

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 Place Of Justice Is A Hallowed Place.

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.

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

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

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.

The Way Of Fortune Is Like The Milky Way In The Sky; Which Is A Meeting, Or Knot, Of A Number Of Small Stars, Not Seen Asunder, But Giving Light Together : So Are There A Number Of Little And Scarce Discerned Virtues, Or Rather Faculties And Customs, That Make Men Fortunate.

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

A Man That Studieth Revenge Keeps His Own Wounds Green.

Disciples Do Owe Their Masters Only A Temporary Belief, And A Suspension Of Their Own Judgment Till They Be Fully Instructed.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 Above All To Remember The Conclusion Of The Roman Twelve Tables :the Supreme Law Of All Is The Weal [weatlh/ Well-being] Of The People.

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

I Would Live To Study, Not Study To Live.

Great Hypocrites Are The Real Atheists.

Why Should A Man Be In Love With His Fetters, Though Of Gold?

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

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

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.

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

Art Is Man Added To Nature.

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

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

It's Not What We Profess But What We Practice That Gives Us Integrity.

By This Means We Presume We Have Established For Ever, A True And Legitimate Marriage Between The Empirical And Rational Faculty; Whose Fastidious And Unfortunate Divorce And Separation Hath Troubled And Disordered The Whole Race And Generation Of Mankind.

It Is Impossible To Love And To Be Wise.

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

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

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.

Every Person Born In The Usa Is Endowed With Life, Liberty, And A Substantial Share Of The National Debt.

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

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

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.

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.

People Have Discovered That They Can Fool The Devil; But They Can't Fool The Neighbors.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Men 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.

My Praise Shall Be Dedicated To The Mind Itself. The Mind Is The Man, And The Knowledge Is The Mind. A Man Is But What He Knoweth. The Mind Is But An Accident To Knowledge, For Knowledge Is The Double Of That Which Is.

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

Mind Your Own Business

Wonder Is The Seed Of Knowledge

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

Beauty Itself Is But The Sensible Image Of The Infinite.

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

The Worst Men Often Give The Best Advice.

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

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

Whatever You Can, Count.

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.

Truth Is The Daughter Of Time, Not Of Authority.

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.

In All Negotiations Of Difficulty, A Man May Not Look To Sow And Reap At Once; But Must Prepare Business, And So Ripen It By Degrees.

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

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.

Custom Is The Principle Magistrate Of Man's Life.

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

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

Studies Serve For Delight, For Ornaments, And For Ability.

Consistency Is The Foundation Of Virtue.

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

He That Hath Wife And Children Hath Given Hostages To Fortune, For They Are Impediments To Great Enterprises, Either Of Virtue Or Mischief. Certainly The Best Works And Of Greatest Merit For The Public Have Proceeded From The Unmarried Or Childless Men, Which Both In Affection And Means Have Married And Endowed The Public. He Was Reputed One Of The Wise Men That Made Answer To The Question, When A Man Should Marrya Young Man Not Yet, An Elder Man Not At All.

A Good Conscience Is A Continual Feast.

Mysteries Are Due To Secrecy.

Hurl Your Calumnies Boldly; Something Is Sure To Stick.

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

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

All Colours Will Agree In The Dark.

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 Doctrines Of Religion Are Resolved Into Carefulness; Carefulness Into Vigorousness; Vigorousness Into Guiltlessness; Guiltlessness Into Abstemiousness; Abstemiousness Into Cleanliness; Cleanliness Into Godliness.

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

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

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

Nothing Is Pleasant That Is Not Spiced With Variety.

Variety Is The Spice Of Life

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

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.

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

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

Some Books Should Be Tasted, Some Devoured, But Only A Few Should Be Chewed And Digested Thoroughly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

If I Go To The National Gallery And I Look At One Of The Great Paintings That Excite Me There, It's Not So Much The Painting That Excites Me As That The Painting Unlocks All Kinds Of Valves Of Sensation Within Me Which Return Me To Life More Violently.

The Worst Solitute Is To Be Destitute Of True Friendship.

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.

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.

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

Liberty Of Speech Invites And Provokes Liberty To Be Used Again, And So Bringeth Much To A Man's Knowledge.

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

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.

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

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

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.

It Is By Discourse That Men Associate, And Words Are Imposed According To The Apprehension Of The Vulgar. And Therefore The Ill And Unfit Choice Of Words Wonderfully Obsesses The Understanding. Nor Do The Definitions Or Explanations Wherewith In Some Things Learned Men Are Wont To Guard And Defend Themselves, By Any Means Set The Matter Right. But Words Plainly Force And Overrule The Understanding, And Throw All Into Confusion, And Lead Men Away Into Innumerable And Inane Controversies And Fancies.

The Great Advantages Of Simulation And Dissimulation Are Three. First To Lay Asleep Opposition And To Surprise. For Where A Man's Intentions Are Published, It Is An Alarum To Call Up All That Are Against Them. The Second Is To Reserve A Man's Self A Fair Retreat: For If A Man Engage Himself, By A Manifest Declaration, He Must Go Through, Or Take A Fall. The Third Is, The Better To Discover The Mind Of Another. For To Him That Opens Himself, Men Will Hardly Show Themselves Adverse; But Will Fair Let Him Go On, And Turn Their Freedom Of Speech To Freedom Of Thought.

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

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

Innovations, Which Are The Births Of Time.

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

Cure The Disease And Kill The Patient.

A Lie Faces God And Shrinks From Man.

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

We Only Have Our Nervous System To Paint.

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.

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

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