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...those Experiments Be Not Only Esteemed Which Have An Immediate And Present Use, But Those Principally Which Are Of Most Universal Consequence For Invention Of Other Experiments, And Those Which Give More Light To The Invention Of Causes; For The Invention Of The Mariner's Needle, Which Giveth The Direction, Is Of No Less Benefit For Navigation Than The Invention Of The Sails, Which Give The Motion.

-Francis Bacon

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...those Experiments Be Not

Francis Bacon

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...those Experiments Be Not Only Esteemed Which Have An Immediate And Present Use, But Those Principally Which Are Of Most Universal Consequence For Invention Of Other Experiments, And Those Which Give More Light To The Invention Of Causes; For The Invention Of The Mariner's Needle, Which Giveth The Direction, Is Of No Less Benefit For Navigation Than The Invention Of The Sails, Which Give The Motion.

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

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

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

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

Mind Your Own Business

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

Reading Maketh A Full Man.

They Are The Best Physicians, Who Being Great In Learning Most Incline To The Traditions Of Experience, Or Being Distinguished In Practice Do Not Reflect The Methods And Generalities Of Art.

Nature, To Be Commanded, Must Be Obeyed.

The Worst Solitute Is To Be Destitute Of True Friendship.

God Almighty First Planted A Garden. And Indeed, It Is The Purest Of Human Pleasures.

Truth Is So Hard To Tell, It Sometimes Needs Fiction To Make It Plausible.

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 Feel That I Am Much Freer If I'm On My Own, But I'm Sure That There Are A Lot Of Painters Who Would Perhaps Be Even More Inventive If They Had People Round Them... I Find That If I Am On My Own I Can Allow The Paint To Dictate To Me. So The Images That I'm Putting Down On The Canvas Dictate The Thing To Me And It Gradually Builds Up And Comes Along.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.'

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

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

Praise Is The Reflection Of Virtue.

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.

Nay, Number Itself In Armies Importeth Not Much, Where The People Is Of Weak Courage; For, As Virgil Saith, It Never Troubles The Wolf How Many The Sheep Be.

I Do Not Believe That Any Man Fears To Be Dead, But Only The Stroke Of Death.

Moreover, The Works Already Known Are Due To Chance And Experiment Rather Than To Sciences; For The Sciences We Now Possess Are Merely Systems For The Nice Ordering And Setting Forth Of Things Already Invented; Not Methods Of Invention Or Directions For New Works.

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

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

An Illustrational Form Tells You Through The Intelligence Immediately What The Form Is About, Whereas A Non-illustrational Form Works First Upon Sensation And Then Slowly Leaks Back Into The Fact.

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.

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.

Vices Of The Time; Vices Of The Man.

The Remedy Is Worse Than The Disease.

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

Christian Inspirational

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.

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

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

For There Is A Great Difference In Delivery Of The Mathematics , Which Are The Most Abstracted Of Knowledges, And Policy , Which Is The Most Immersed. And Howsoever Contention Hath Been Moved , Touching A Uniformity Of Method In Multiformity Of Matter, Yet We See How That Opinion, Besides The Weakness Of It, Hath Been Of Ill Desert Towards Learning, As That Which Taketh The Way To Reduce Learning To Certain Empty And Barren Generalities; Being But The Very Husks And Shells Of Sciences, All The Kernel Being Forced Out And Expulsed With The Torture And Press Of The Method.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

You Cannot Teach A Child To Take Care Of Himself Unless You Will Let Him Try To Take Care Of Himself. He Will Make Mistakes And Out Of These Mistakes Will Come His Wisdom.

A Man Who Contemplates Revenge Keeps His Wounds Green.

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

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

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

People Prefer To Believe What They Want To Be True.

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 Partitions Of Knowledge Are Not Like Several Lines That Meet In One Angle, And So Touch Not In A Point; But Are Like Branches Of A Tree, That Meet In A Stem, Which Hath A Dimension And Quantity Of Entireness And Continuance, Before It Come To Discontinue And Break Itself Into Arms And Boughs.

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.

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

The Worst Men Often Give The Best Advice.

Studies Perfect Nature And Are Perfected Still By Experience.

Always Let Losers Have Their Words.

Silence Is The Sleep That Nourishes Wisdom.

Great Hypocrites Are The Real Atheists.

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

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.

Certainly, It Is Heaven Upon Earth, To Have A Man's Mind Move In Charity, Rest In Providence, And Turn Upon The Poles Of Truth.

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.

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

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

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

Questions And Answers

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

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.

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

Again There Is Another Great And Powerful Cause Why The Sciences Have Made But Little Progress; Which Is This. It Is Not Possible To Run A Course Aright When The Goal Itself Has Not Been Rightly Placed.

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

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.

Come Home To Men's Business And Bosoms.

It Is Impossible To Love And To Be Wise.

By Far The Best Proof Is Experience.

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.

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

The Logic Now In Use Serves Rather To Fix And Give Stability To The Errors Which Have Their Foundation In Commonly Received Notions Than To Help The Search For Truth. So It Does More Harm Than Good.

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

The Less People Speak Of Their Greatness, The More We Think Of It.

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

Friendship Maketh Daylight In The Understanding, Out Of Darkness And Confusion Of Thoughts.

A King That Would Not Feel His Crown Too Heavy For Him, Must Wear It Every Day; But If He Think It Too Light, He Knoweth Not Of What Metal It Is Made.

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

Men Fear Death As Children Fear To Go In The Dark; And As That Natural Fear In Children Is Increased By Tales, So Is The Other.

It Is A Good Point Of Cunning For A Man To Shape The Answer He Would Have In His Own Words And Propositions, For It Makes The Other Party Stick The Less.

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.

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.

Beauty Itself Is But The Sensible Image Of The Infinite.

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

I Confess That I Have As Vast Contemplative Ends, As I Have Moderate Civil Ends: For I Have Taken All Knowledge To Be My Province.

The Root Of All Superstition Is That Men Observe When A Thing Hits, But Not When It Misses.

Learning Teaches How To Carry Things In Suspense, Without Prejudice, Till You Resolve It.

The Desire Of Power In Excess Caused The Angels To Fall; The Desire Of Knowledge In Excess Caused Man To Fall: But In Charity There Is No Excess; Neither Can Angel Nor Man Come In Danger By It.

Innovations, Which Are The Births Of Time.

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.

Judges Ought To Be More Learned, Than Witty, More Reverend, Than Plausible, And More Advised, Than Confident. Above All Things, Integrity Is Their Portion And Proper Virtue.

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.

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

...those Experiments Be Not Only Esteemed Which Have An Immediate And Present Use, But Those Principally Which Are Of Most Universal Consequence For Invention Of Other Experiments, And Those Which Give More Light To The Invention Of Causes; For The Invention Of The Mariner's Needle, Which Giveth The Direction, Is Of No Less Benefit For Navigation Than The Invention Of The Sails, Which Give The Motion.

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

Do Not Wonder If The Common People Speak More Truly Than Those Above Them: They Speak More Safely.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Time Is The Greatest Innovator.

Travel, In The Younger Sort, Is A Part Of Education; In The Elder, A Part Of Experience. He That Travelleth Into A Country Before He Hath Some Entrance Into The Language, Goeth To School, And Not To Travel.

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

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.

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.

A Good Conscience Is A Continual Feast.

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

There Is No Passion In The Mind Of Man So Weak, But It Mates And Masters The Fear Of Death . . . Revenge Triumphs Over Death; Love Slights It; Honor Aspireth To It; Grief Flieth To It.

Wonder Is The Seed Of Knowledge

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."

Truth Is The Daughter Of Time, Not Of Authority.

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

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

Boldness Is A Child Of Ignorance

Custom Is The Principle Magistrate Of Man's Life.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

If I Sit And Daydream, The Images Rush By Like A Succession Of Colored Slides.

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

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

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

A Man Cannot Speak To His Son, But As A Father; To His Wife, But As A Husband; To His Enemy, But Upon Terms: Whereas A Friend May Speak, As The Case Requires, And Not As It Sorteth With The Person.

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

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

Money Is Like Muck, Not Good Unless Spread.

Change Your Attitude

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Creative Process Is A Cocktail Of Instinct, Skill, Culture And A Highly Creative Feverishness.

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.

I Would Live To Study, Not Study To Live.

The End Of Our Foundation Is The Knowledge Of Causes; And Secret Motions Of Things; And The Enlarging Of The Bounds Of Human Empire, To The Effecting Of All Things Possible.

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.

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.

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

Truth Comes Out Of Error More Readily Than Out Of Confusion.

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

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

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.

The World's A Bubble, And The Life Of Man, Less Than A Span.

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

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

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

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

Great Changes Are Easier Than Small Ones.

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

Young People Are Fitter To Invent Than To Judge; Fitter For Execution Than For Counsel; And More Fit For New Projects Than For Settled Business.

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.

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

The Worst Solitude Is To Have No Real Friendships.

There Is Little Friendship In The World, And Least Of All Between Equals.

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.

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

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

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

Houses Are Built To Live In, And Not To Look On: Therefore Let Use Be Preferred Before Uniformity.

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

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

In Charity There Is No Excess.

Books Must Follow Sciences, And Not Sciences Books.

Wives Are Young Men's Mistresses, Companions For Middle Age, And Old Men's Nurses.

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

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.

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

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

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

It Is Natural To Die As To Be Born.

All Superstition Is Much The Same Whether It Be That Of Astrology, Dreams, Omen, Retributive Judgment, Or The Like, In All Of Which The Deluded Believers Observe Events Which Are Fulfilled, But Neglect And Pass Over Their Failure, Though It Be Much More Common.

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

Parents Who Wish To Train Up Their Children In The Way They Should Go Must Go In The Way In Which They Would Have Their Children Go.

The Mold Of Our Fortunes Is In Our Own Hands.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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