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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.

-Francis Bacon

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The True Bounds And

Francis Bacon

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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.

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Truth Emerges More Readily From Error Than From Confusion.

Perils Commonly Ask To Be Paid In Pleasures.

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

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 Will Not Apply New Remedies, Must Expect New Evils: For Time Is The Greatest Innovator: And If Time, Of Course, Alter Things To The Worse, And Wisdom And Counsel Shall Not Alter Them To The Better, What Shall Be The End?.

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

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

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

Friendship Redoubleth Joys, And Cutteth Griefs In Half.

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

In Things That Are Tender And Unpleasing, It Is Good To Break The Ice By Some One Whose Words Are Of Less Weight, And To Reserve The More Weighty Voice To Come In As By Chance.

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

Man Seeketh In Society Comfort, Use And Protection.

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

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

States Are Great Engines Moving Slowly.

All Will Come Out In The Washing.

A Graceful And Pleasing Figure Is A Perpetual Letter Of Recommendation.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Christian Inspirational

Lies Are Sufficient To Breed Opinion, And Opinion Brings On Substance.

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

Custom Is The Principle Magistrate Of Man's Life.

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

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

They Who Derive Their Worth From Their Ancestors Resemble Potatoes, The Most Valuable Part Of Which Is Underground.

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

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

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

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.

The Cord Breaketh At Last By The Weakest Pull.

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.

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

A Little Science Estranges A Man From God; A Lot Of Science Brings Him Back.

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

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.

Much Bending Breaks The Bow; Much Unbending The Mind.

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.

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.

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

A Bad Man Is Worse When He Pretends To Be A Saint.

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

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.

Small Amounts Of Philosophy Lead To Atheism, But Larger Amounts Bring Us Back To God.

Nature, To Be Commanded, Must Be Obeyed.

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.

Rebellions Of The Belly Are The Worst.

Man Was Formed For Society.

Speech Of Yourself Ought To Be Seldom And Well Chosen.

The Virtue Of Prosperity Is Temperance; The Virtue Of Adversity Is Fortitude.

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

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.

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

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.

I Paint For Myself. I Don't Know How To Do Anything Else, Anyway. Also I Have To Earn My Living, And Occupy Myself.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Beauty Itself Is But The Sensible Image Of The Infinite.

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

I Feel Ever So Strongly That An Artist Must Be Nourished By His Passions And His Despairs. These Things Alter An Artist Whether For The Good Or The Better Or The Worse. It Must Alter Him. The Feelings Of Desperation And Unhappiness Are More Useful To An Artist Than The Feeling Of Contentment, Because Desperation And Unhappiness Stretch Your Whole Sensibility.

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

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.

Boldness Is A Child Of Ignorance

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

Wounds Cannot Be Cured Without Searching.

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.

All Artists Are Vain, They Long To Be Recognized And To Leave Something To Posterity. They Want To Be Loved, And At The Same Time They Want To Be Free. But Nobody Is Free.

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

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.

The Human Understanding, From Its Peculiar Nature, Easily Supposes A Greater Degree Of Order And Equality In Things Than It Really Finds.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

There Is In Human Nature Generally More Of The Fool Than Of The Wise.

A Man That Is Young In Years May Be Old In Hours If He Have Lost No Time.

Money Is A Great Servant But A Bad Master.

To Say That A Man Lieth, Is As Much To Say, As That He Is Brave Towards God, And A Coward Towards Men.

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

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

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

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

The Genius Of Any Single Man Can No More Equal Learning, Than A Private Purse Hold Way With The Exchequer.

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

A Man That Studieth Revenge Keeps His Own Wounds Green.

Photographs Are Not Only Points Of Reference... They're Often Triggers Of Ideas.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

...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.

There Is No Vice That Doth So Cover A Man With Shame As To Be Found False And Perfidious.

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.

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

Studies Perfect Nature And Are Perfected Still By Experience.

Fortune Makes Him Fool, Whom She Makes Her Darling.

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.

A Wise Man Will Make More Opportunities Than He Finds.

Secrecy In Suits Goes A Great Way Towards Success.

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.

Riches Are A Good Hand Maiden, But A Poor Mistress.

The Ill And Unfit Choice Of Words Wonderfully Obstructs The Understanding.

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.

Reading Maketh A Full Man.

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

Men Are Rather Beholden ... Generally To Chance Or Anything Else, Than To Logic, For The Invention Of Arts And Sciences.

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

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

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

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.

To Be Free Minded And Cheerfully Disposed At Hours Of Meat And Sleep And Of Exercise Is One Of The Best Precepts Of Long Lasting.

I Hold Every Man A Debtor To His Profession.

Men In Great Place Are Thrice Servants: Servants Of The Sovereign Or State, Servants Of Fame, And Servants Of Business.

There Is No Great Concurrence Between Learning And Wisdom.

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.

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

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

Innovations, Which Are The Births Of Time.

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.

Riches Are For Spending.

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.

Revenge Is A Kind Of Wild Justice.

Virtue Is Like Precious Odours,-most Fragrant When They Are Incensed Or Crushed.

Books Will Speak Plain When Counselors Blanch.

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.

The Stage Is More Beholding To Love Than The Life Of Man. For As To The Stage, Love Is Ever Matter Of Comedies And Now And Then Of Tragedies; But In Life It Doth Much Mischief, Sometimes Like A Siren, Sometimes Like A Fury.

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

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

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

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

The Scripture Saith, The Fool Hath Said In His Heart, There Is No God; It Is Not Said, The Fool Hath Thought In His Heart; So As He Rather Saith It, By Rote To Himself, As That He Would Have, Than That He Can Thoroughly Believe It, Or Be Persuaded Of It....it Appeareth In Nothing More, That Atheism Is Rather In The Lip, Than In The Heart Of Man.

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

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

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

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

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

Nobility Of Birth Commonly Abateth Industry.

Hurl Your Calumnies Boldly; Something Is Sure To Stick.

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.

Suspicions That The Mind, Of Itself, Gathers, Are But Buzzes; But Suspicions That Are Artificially Nourished And Put Into Men's Heads By The Tales And Whisperings Of Others, Have Stings.

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.

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

There Is Superstition In Avoiding Superstition.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

Base And Crafty Cowards Are Like The Arrow That Flieth In The Dark.

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.

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

Atheism Leads A Man To Sense, To Philosophy, To Natural Piety, To Laws, To Reputation: All Of Which May Be Guides To An Outward Moral Virtue.

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

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.

All Colours Will Agree In The Dark.

What, Then, Remains But That We Still Should Cry, For Being Born, And, Being Born, To Die?

He That Toucheth Pitch Shall Be Defiled Therewith.

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

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.

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.

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

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

The Best Armor Is To Keep Out Of Gunshot.

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.

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

He That Plots To Be The Only Figure Among Ciphers [zeros], Is The Decay Of The Whole Age.

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

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

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

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

The Study Of Nature With A View To Works Is Engaged In By The Mechanic, The Mathematician, The Physician, The Alchemist, And The Magician; But By All As Things Now Are With Slight Endeavour And Scanty Success.

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.

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?

Great Hypocrites Are The Real Atheists.

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

I Have To Hope That My Instincts Will Do The Right Thing, Because I Can't Erase What I Have Done. And If I Drew Something First, Then My Paintings Would Be Illustrations Of Drawings.

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.

We Only Have Our Nervous System To Paint.

Take An Arrow, And Hold It In Flame For The Space Of Ten Pulses, And When It Cometh Forth You Shall Find Those Parts Of The Arrow Which Were On The Outsides Of The Flame More Burned, Blacked, And Turned Almost To Coal, Whereas The Midst Of The Flame Will Be As If The Fire Had Scarce Touched It. This Is An Instance Of Great Consequence For The Discovery Of The Nature Of Flame; And Sheweth Manifestly, That Flame Burneth More Violently Towards The Sides Than In The Midst.

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

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