Background Image

...

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

-Francis Bacon

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Human Understanding Is

Francis Bacon

...

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

Views: 93584

Topic

More From Francis Bacon

Truth Is A Naked And Open Daylight

Vices Of The Time; Vices Of The Man.

The Registering Of Doubts Hath Two Excellent Uses: The One, That It Saveth Philosophy From Errors And Falsehoods; When That Which Is Not Fully Appearing Is Not Collected Into Assertion, Whereby Error Might Draw Error, But Reserved In Doubt: The Other, That The Entry Of Doubts Are As So Many Suckers Or Sponges To Draw Use Of Knowledge; Insomuch As That Which, If Doubts Had Not Preceded, A Man Should Never Have Advised, But Passed It Over Without Note, By The Suggestion And Solicitation Of Doubts, Is Made To Be Attended And Applied.

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

Rather To Excite Your Judgment Briefly Than To Inform It Tediously.

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

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

...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.

A Man Who Contemplates Revenge Keeps His Wounds Green.

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

Who Then To Frail Mortality Shall Trust But Limns The Water, Or But Writes In Dust.

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 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."

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

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

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

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.

Read Not To Contradict And Confute; Nor To Believe And Take For Granted; Nor To Find Talk And Discourse; But To Weigh And Consider. Some Books Are To Be Tasted, Others To Be Swallowed, And Some Few To Be Chewed And Digested: That Is, Some Books Are To Be Read Only In Parts, Others To Be Read, But Not Curiously, And Some Few To Be Read Wholly, And With Diligence And Attention.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

God Loveth The Clean.

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

Truth Is The Daughter Of Time, Not Of Authority.

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

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

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

I Hold Every Man A Debtor To His Profession; From The Which As Men Of Course Do Seek To Receive Countenance And Profit, So Ought They Of Duty To Endeavor Themselves, By Way Of Amends, To Be A Help And Ornament Thereunto.

All Colours Will Agree In The Dark.

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

There Arises From A Bad And Unapt Formation Of Words A Wonderful Obstruction To The Mind.

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

The Greatest Trust Between Man And Man Is The Trust Of Giving Counsel.

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.

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

The Worst Men Often Give The Best Advice.

The Cause And Root Of Nearly All Evils In The Sciences Is This-that While We Falsely Admire And Extol The Powers Of The Human Mind We Neglect To Seek For Its True Helps.

[science Is] The Labor And Handicraft Of The Mind.

I Would Like My Pictures To Look As If A Human Being Had Passed Between Them, Like A Snail, Leaving A Trail Of The Human Presence And Memory Trace Of Past Events, As The Snail Leaves Its Slime.

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

Of All The Things In Nature, The Formation And Endowment Of Man Was Singled Out By The Ancients.

Beauty Itself Is But The Sensible Image Of The Infinite.

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.

The Eye Of Understanding Is Like The Eye Of The Sense; For As You May See Great Objects Through Small Crannies Or Levels, So You May See Great Axioms Of Nature Through Small And Contemptible Instances.

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 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.

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

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.

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

Praise Is The Reflection Of Virtue.

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.

Discretion In Speech Is More Than Eloquence.

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.

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

Always Let Losers Have Their Words.

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.

By Indignities Men Come To Dignities.

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 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.

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

In Charity There Is No Excess.

For A Crowd Is Not Company; And Faces Are But A Gallery Of Pictures; And Talk But A Tinkling Cymbal, Where There Is No Love.

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.

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

There Were Taken Apples, And ... Closed Up In Wax. ... After A Month's Space, The Apple Inclosed In Was Was As Green And Fresh As The First Putting In, And The Kernals Continued White. The Cause Is, For That All Exclusion Of Open Air, Which Is Ever Predatory, Maintaineth The Body In Its First Freshness And Moisture.

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."

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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

Children Sweeten Labours, But They Make Misfortunes More Bitter.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Silence Is The Virtue Of Fools.

More Dangers Have Deceived Men Than Forced Them.

Men Leave Their Riches Either To Their Kindred Or Their Friends, And Moderate Portions Prosper Best In Both.

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

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

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

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

A Wise Man Will Make More Opportunities Than He Finds.

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.

Riches Are For Spending.

I Like, You May Say, The Glitter And Colour That Comes From The Mouth, And I've Always Hoped In A Sense To Be Able To Paint The Mouth Like Monet Painted A Sunset.

In All Superstition Wise Men Follow Fools.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Suspicion Amongst Thoughts Are Like Bats Amongst Birds, They Never Fly By Twilight.

Money Is A Great Servant But A Bad Master.

A Little Philosophy Inclineth Man's Mind To Atheism, But Depth In Philosophy Bringeth Men's Minds About To Religion.

To Know Truly Is To Know By Causes.

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

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.

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

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

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.

I Believe In Deeply Ordered Chaos

Write Down The Thoughts Of The Moment. Those That Come Unsought For Are Commonly The Most Valuable.

For No Man Can Forbid The Spark Nor Tell Whence It May Come.

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.

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

Why Should I Be Angry With A Man For Loving Himself Better Than Me?

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

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

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.

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

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

Consistency Is The Foundation Of Virtue.

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 Job Of The Artist Is Always To Deepen The Mystery.

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.

I'm Just Trying To Make Images As Accurately As Possible Off My Nervous System As I Can.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

For Knowledge, Too, Is Itself Power.

I Should Have Been, I Don't Know, A Con-man, A Robber Or A Prostitute. But It Was Vanity That Made Me Choose Painting, Vanity And Chance.

Hope Is The Most Beneficial Of All The Affections, And Doth Much To The Prolongation Of Life.

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

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

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

Painting Is A Duality And Abstract Painting Is An Entirely Aesthetic Thing. It Always Remains On One Level. It Is Only Really Interesting In The Beauty Of Its Patterns Or Its Shapes.

Abstract Painting

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.

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.

A Sudden Bold And Unexpected Question Doth Many Times Surprise A Man And Lay Him Open.

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

We Only Have Our Nervous System To Paint.

Men Suppose Their Reason Has Command Over Their Words; Still It Happens That Words In Return Exercise Authority On Reason

Truth Can Never Be Reached By Just Listening To The Voice Of An Authority.

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

The Human Understanding Is Moved By Those Things Most Which Strike And Enter The Mind Simultaneously And Suddenly, And So Fill The Imagination; And Then It Feigns And Supposes All Other Things To Be Somehow, Though It Cannot See How, Similar To Those Few Things By Which It Is Surrounded.

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.

Perils Commonly Ask To Be Paid In Pleasures.

Great Riches Have Sold More Men Than They Have Bought.

It's Not What We Eat But What We Digest That Makes Us Strong; Not What We Gain But What We Save That Makes Us Rich; Not What We Read But What We Remember That Makes Us Learned; And Not What We Profess But What We Practice That Gives Us Integrity.

Man, As The Minister And Interpreter Of Nature, Is Limited In Act And Understanding By His Observation Of The Order Of Nature; Neither His Understanding Nor His Power Extends Further.

Prosperity Discovers Vice, Adversity Discovers Virtue.

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

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.

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

God Never Wrought Miracles To Convince Atheism, Because His Ordinary Works Convince It.

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

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

Overcoming Doubt

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

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.

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

The Only Hope [of Science] ... Is In Genuine Induction.

The Inquiry Of Truth, Which Is The Love-making, Or The Wooing Of It, The Knowledge Of Truth, Which Is The Presence Of It, And The Belief Of Truth, Which Is The Enjoying Of It, Is The Sovereign Good Of Human Nature.

Nothing Is Terrible Except Fear Itself.

Truth Emerges More Readily From Error Than From Confusion.

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.

A Much Talking Judge Is An Ill-tuned Cymbal.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

All Will Come Out In The Washing.

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.

When A Man Laughs At His Troubles He Loses A Great Many Friends. They Never Forgive The Loss Of Their Prerogative.

Time Is The Author Of Authors.

Opportunity Makes A Thief.

Custom Is The Principle Magistrate Of Man's Life.

It Is Impossible To Love And To Be Wise.

Nothing Opens The Heart Like A True Friend, To Whom You May Impart Griefs, Joys, Fears, Hopes...and Whatever Lies Upon The Heart.

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.

Some Artists Leave Remarkable Things Which, A 100 Years Later, Don't Work At All. I Have Left My Mark; My Work Is Hung In Museums, But Maybe One Day The Tate Gallery Or The Other Museums Will Banish Me To The Cellar... You Never Know.

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

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

Men Ought To Find The Difference Between Saltiness And Bitterness. Certainly, He That Hath A Satirical Vein, As He Maketh Others Afraid Of His Wit, So He Had Need Be Afraid Of Others' Memory.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Man Prefers To Believe What He Prefers To Be True.

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

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

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

Trending Author

Category