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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.

-Francis Bacon

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The Human Understanding Is

Francis Bacon

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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.

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To Conclude, Therefore, Let No Man Upon A Weak Conceit Of Sobriety Or An Ill-applied Moderation Think Or Maintain That A Man Can Search Too Far, Or Be Too Well Studied In The Book Of God's Word, Or The Book Of God's Works, Divinity Or Philosophy; But Rather Let Men Endeavor An Endless Progress Or Proficience In Both; Only Let Men Beware That They Apply Both To Charity, And Not To Swelling; To Use, And Not To Ostentation; And Again, That They Do Not Unwisely Mingle Or Confound These Learnings Together.

Hurl Your Calumnies Boldly; Something Is Sure To Stick.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Knowledge Is Power.

Silence Is The Sleep That Nourishes Wisdom.

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.

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

He That Hath Knowledge Spareth His Words.

Choose The Life That Is Most Useful, And Habit Will Make It The Most Agreeable.

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

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.

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

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

Pyrrhus, When His Friends Congratulated To Him His Victory Over The Romans Under Fabricius, But With Great Slaughter Of His Own Side, Said To Them, "yes; But If We Have Such Another Victory, We Are Undone."

The General Root Of Superstition Is That Men Observe When Things Hit, And Not When They Miss, And Commit To Memory The One, And Pass Over The Other.

The Worst Men Often Give The Best Advice.

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

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.

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.

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

Images Also Help Me Find And Realise Ideas. I Look At Hundreds Of Very Different, Contrasting Images And I Pinch Details From Them, Rather Like People Who Eat From Other People`s Plates.

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

If You Dissemble Sometimes Your Knowledge Of That You Are Thought To Know, You Shall Be Thought, Another Time, To Know That You Know Not.

The Voice Of The People Has About It Something Divine: For How Otherwise Can So Many Heads Agree Together As One?

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.

Great Boldness Is Seldom Without Some Absurdity.

Nevertheless If Any Skillful Servant Of Nature Shall Bring Force To Bear On Matter, And Shall Vex It And Drive It To Extremities As If With The Purpose Of Reducing It To Nothing, Then Will Matter (since Annihilation Or True Destruction Is Not Possible Except By The Omnipotence Of God) Finding Itself In These Straits, Turn And Transform Itself Into Strange Shapes, Passing From One Change To Another Till It Has Gone Through The Whole Circle And Finished The Period.

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

Great Hypocrites Are The Real Atheists.

States, As Great Engines, Move Slowly.

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

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

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

There Was Never Law, Or Sect, Or Opinion Did So Much Magnify Goodness, As The Christian Religion Doth.

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

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.

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

Gardening Is The Purest Of Human Pleasures.

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.

If You Can Talk About It, Why Paint It?

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

Always Let Losers Have Their Words.

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."

Wonder Is The Seed Of Knowledge

People Prefer To Believe What They Want To Be True.

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

It Is A Pleasure To Stand Upon The Shore, And To See Ships Tost Upon The Sea: A Pleasure To Stand In The Window Of A Castle, And To See A Battle And The Adventures Thereof Below: But No Pleasure Is Comparable To Standing Upon The Vantage Ground Of Truth . . . And To See The Errors, And Wanderings, And Mists, And Tempests, In The Vale Below.

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

Seek Ye First The Good Things Of The Mind, And The Rest Will Either Be Supplied Or Its Loss Will Not Be Felt.

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

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

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.

I Would Live To Study, Not Study To Live.

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

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

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.

Another Error Is An Impatience Of Doubt And Haste To Assertion Without Due And Mature Suspension Of Judgment. For The Two Ways Of Contemplation Are Not Unlike The Two Ways Of Action Commonly Spoken Of By The Ancients; The One Plain And Smooth In The Beginning, And In The End Impassable; The Other Rough And Troublesome In The Entrance, But After A While Fair And Even. So It Is In Contemplation; If A Man Will Begin With Certainties, He Shall End In Doubts; But If He Will Be Content To Begin With Doubts, He Shall End In Certainties.

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.

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

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

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

Virtue Is Like A Rich Stone, Best Plain Set.

All Will Come Out In The Washing.

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

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

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

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

Crafty Men Condemn Studies; Simple Men Admire Them; And Wise Men Use Them: For They Teach Not Their Own Use: But That Is A Wisdom Without Them, And Above Them, Won By Observation.

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

Revenge Is A Kind Of Wild Justice.

Some Paint Comes Across Directly Onto The Nervous System And Other Paint Tells You The Story In A Long Diatribe Through The Brain.

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.

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.

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

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

Art Is Man Added To Nature.

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

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

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

The Images Of Mens Wits And Knowledge Remain In Books. They Generate Still, And Cast Their Seeds In The Minds Of Others, Provoking And Causing Infinite Actions And Opinions In Succeeding Ages

Lukewarm Persons Think They May Accommodate Points Of Religion By Middle Ways And Witty Reconcilements,--as If They Would Make An Arbitrament Between God And Man.

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

Spouses Are Great Impediments To Great Enterprises.

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

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.

Acorns Were Good Until Bread Was Found.

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

God Loveth The Clean.

You Can't Be More Horrific Than Life Itself.

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

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.

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.

A Man Who Contemplates Revenge Keeps His Wounds Green.

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.

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

The Folly Of One Man Is The Fortune Of Another.

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

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

Christian Inspirational

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.

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 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.

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

Be So True To Thyself, As Thou Be Not False To Others.

Boost Self Esteem

Boost Self Confidence

Studies Perfect Nature And Are Perfected Still By Experience.

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

For It Is Not Possible To Join Serpentine Wisdom With Columbine Innocence, Except Men Know Exactly All The Conditions Of The Serpent: His Baseness And Going Upon His Belly, His Volubility And Lubricity, His Envy And Sting, And The Rest; That Is, All Forms And Natures Of Evil: For Without This, Virtue Lieth Open And Unfenced.

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.

If My People Look As If They're In A Dreadful Fix, It's Because I Can't Get Them Out Of A Technical Dilemma.

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.

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

It Was Well Said That Envy Keeps No Holidays.

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

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

A Man Finds Himself Seven Years Older The Day After His Marriage.

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

We Read That We Ought To Forgive Our Enemies; But We Do Not Read That We Ought To Forgive Our Friends.

Reading Maketh A Full Man.

All Colours Will Agree In The Dark.

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

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

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.

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

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.

There Was A Young Man In Rome That Was Very Like Augustus Caesar; Augustus Took Knowledge Of It And Sent For The Man, And Asked Him "was Your Mother Never At Rome?" He Answered "no Sir; But My Father Was."

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.

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.

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

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.

By Far The Best Proof Is Experience.

More Dangers Have Deceived Men Than Forced Them.

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.

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

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

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

Riches Are For Spending.

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.'

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.

Nature, To Be Commanded, Must Be Obeyed.

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.

Man Seeketh In Society Comfort, Use And Protection.

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

He That Toucheth Pitch Shall Be Defiled Therewith.

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing Doth More Hurt In A State Than That Cunning Men Pass For Wise.

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

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. And Though There Be A Greater Number And Weight Of Instances To Be Found On The Other Side, Yet These It Either Neglects And Despises, Or Else By Some Distinction Sets Aside And Rejects, In Order That By This Great And Pernicious Predetermination The Authority Of Its Former Conclusions May Remain Inviolate.

The Cord Breaketh At Last By The Weakest Pull.

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.

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

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.

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

The Best Armor Is To Keep Out Of Gunshot.

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 Emerges More Readily From Error Than From Confusion.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Pictures And Shapes Are But Secondary Objects And Please Or Displease Only In The Memory.

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

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.

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

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.

There Is No Great Concurrence Between Learning And Wisdom.

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

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

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.

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

Questions And Answers

Man, Being The Servant And Interpreter Of Nature, Can Do And Understand So Much And So Much Only As He Has Observed In Fact Or Thought Of The Course Of Nature; Beyond This He Neither Knows Anything Nor Can Do Anything.

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

Discretion In Speech Is More Than Eloquence.

They Are Happy Men Whose Natures Sort With Their Vocations.

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

...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.

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.

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

Nothing Is To Be Feared But Fear.

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

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

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

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.

All The Crimes On Earth Do Not Destroy So Many Of The Human Race Nor Alienate So Much Property As Drunkenness.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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