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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?

-Francis Bacon

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Truth May Perhaps Come

Francis Bacon

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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?

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Prosperity Discovers Vice, Adversity Discovers Virtue.

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.

I Had Rather Believe All The Fables In The Legend, And The Talmud, And The Alcoran, Than That This Universal Frame Is Without A Mind.

Mysteries Are Due To Secrecy.

Man Seeketh In Society Comfort, Use And Protection.

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."

Rebellions Of The Belly Are The Worst.

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

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

Ill Fortune Never Crushed That Man Whom Good Fortune Deceived Not.

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.

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

You Can't Be More Horrific Than Life Itself.

The Place Of Justice Is A Hallowed Place.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It Is Natural To Die As To Be Born.

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.

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.

Doctor Johnson Said, That In Sickness There Were Three Things That Were Material; The Physician, The Disease, And The Patient: And If Any Two Of These Joined, Then They Get The Victory; For, Ne Hercules Quidem Contra Duos [not Even Hercules Himself Is A Match For Two]. If The Physician And The Patient Join, Then Down Goes The Disease; For Then The Patient Recovers: If The Physician And The Disease Join, That Is A Strong Disease; And The Physician Mistaking The Cure, Then Down Goes The Patient: If The Patient And The Disease Join, Then Down Goes The Physician; For He Is Discredited.

Nothing Is To Be Feared But Fear Itself. Nothing Grievous But To Yield To Grief.

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

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.

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

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.

Nothing Is Terrible Except Fear Itself.

We Cannot Command Nature Except By Obeying Her.

Changing Environment

Innovations, Which Are The Births Of Time.

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

Friendship Redoubleth Joys, And Cutteth Griefs In Half.

The Best Preservative To Keep The Mind In Health Is The Faithful Admonition Of A Friend.

Money Is A Great Servant But A Bad Master.

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

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

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 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.'

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

States Are Great Engines Moving Slowly.

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.

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

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

But This Is That Which Will Dignify And Exalt Knowledge: If Contemplation And Action Be More Nearly And Straitly Conjoined And United Together Than They Have Been: A Conjunction Like Unto That Of The Highest Planets, Saturn, The Planet Of Rest And Contemplation, And Jupiter, The Planet Of Civil Society And Action.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Neither The Naked Hand Nor The Understanding Left To Itself Can Effect Much. It Is By Instruments And Helps That The Work Is Done, Which Are As Much Wanted For The Understanding As For The Hand. And As The Instruments Of The Hand Either Give Motion Or Guide It, So The Instruments Of The Mind Supply Either Suggestions For The Understanding Or Cautions.

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

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.

Everybody Has His Own Interpretation Of A Painting He Sees.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.'

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Is A Great Happiness When Men's Professions And Their Inclinations Accord.

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

By Far The Best Proof Is Experience.

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.

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

Such Philosophy As Shall Not Vanish In The Fume Of Subtile, Sublime, Or Delectable Speculation But Shall Be Operative To The Endowment And Betterment Of Man's Life.

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

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

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.

Nothing Doth So Much Keep Men Out Of The Church, And Drive Men Out Of The Church, As Breach Of Unity.

Things Alter For The Worse Spontaneously, If They Be Not Altered For The Better Designedly.

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

The Worst Men Often Give The Best Advice.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

In Nature Things Move Violently To Their Place, And Calmly In Their Place.

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

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.

No Pleasure Is Comparable To The Standing Upon The Vantage-ground Of Truth.

Inspirational Life

Laws And Institutions Must Go Hand In Hand With The Progress Of The Human Mind.

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.

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

There Is No Great Concurrence Between Learning And Wisdom.

Books Will Speak Plain When Counselors Blanch.

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

Children Sweeten Labours, But They Make Misfortunes More Bitter.

Nature, To Be Commanded, Must Be Obeyed.

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.

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

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

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.

Nakedness Is Uncomely, As Well In Mind As Body, And It Addeth No Small Reverence To Men's Manners And Actions If They Be Not Altogether Open. Therefore Set It Down: That A Habit Of Secrecy Is Both Politic And Moral.

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

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.

This Is Certain, That A Man That Studieth Revenge Keeps His Wounds Green, Which Otherwise Would Heal And Do Well.

More Dangers Have Deceived Men Than Forced Them.

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

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

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

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

God's First Creature, Which Was Light.

The Inclination To Goodness Is Imprinted Deeply In The Nature Of Man.

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

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

If I Might Control The Literature Of The Household, I Would Guarantee The Well-being Of Church And State.

Art Is Man Added To Nature.

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

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

If We Do Not Maintain Justice, Justice Will Not Maintain Us.

Criminal Justice

To Spend Too Much Time In Studies Is Sloth; To Use Them Too Much For Ornament Is Affection; To Make Judgment Wholly By Their Rules Is The Humor Of A Scholar.

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

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.

To Spend Too Much Time In Studies Is Sloth.

Books Must Follow Sciences, And Not Sciences Books.

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.

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

There Is A Cunning Which We In England Call "the Turning Of The Cat" In The Pan; Which Is, When That Which A Man Says To Another, He Says It As If Another Had Said It To Him.

But By Far The Greatest Hindrance And Aberration Of The Human Understanding Proceeds From The Dullness, Incompetency, And Deceptions Of The Senses; In That Things Which Strike The Sense Outweigh Things Which Do Not Immediately Strike It, Though They Be More Important. Hence It Is That Speculation Commonly Ceases Where Sight Ceases; Insomuch That Of Things Invisible There Is Little Or No Observation.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Nor Is Mine A Trumpet Which Summons And Excites Men To Cut Each Other To Pieces With Mutual Contradictions, Or To Quarrel And Fight With One Another; But Rather To Make Peace Between Themselves, And Turning With United Forces Against The Nature Of Things

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 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.

Begin Doing What You Want To Do Now. We Are Not Living In Eternity. We Have Only This Moment, Sparkling Like A Star In Our Hand - And Melting Like A Snowflake.

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.

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

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.

Fame Is Like A River, That Beareth Up Things Light And Swollen, And Drowns Things Weighty And Solid.

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

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.

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.

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

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

I Don't Think People Are Born Artists; I Think It Comes From A Mixture Of Your Surroundings, The People You Meet, And Luck.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

Learning Hath His Infancy, When It Is But Beginning And Almost Childish; Then His Youth, When It Is Luxuriant And Juvenile; Then His Strength Of Years, When It Is Solid And Reduced; And Lastly His Old Age, When It Waxeth Dry And Exhaust.

The Worst Solitute Is To Be Destitute Of True Friendship.

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

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

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.

In Philosophy, The Contemplations Of Man Do Either Penetrate Unto God, Or Are Circumferred To Nature, Or Are Reflected And Reverted Upon Himself. Out Of Which Several Inquiries There Do Arise Three Knowledges, Divine Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, And Human Philosophy Or Humanity. For All Things Are Marked And Stamped With This Triple Character Of The Power Of God, The Difference Of Nature And The Use Of Man.

God Hangs The Greatest Weights Upon The Smallest Wires.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Fortune Makes Him Fool, Whom She Makes Her Darling.

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

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."

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.

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.

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

But The Best Demonstration By Far Is Experience, If It Go Not Beyond The Actual Experiment.

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

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

All Bravery Stands Upon Comparisons.

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

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

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

Without Friends The World Is But A Wilderness.

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

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.

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.

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.

Boldness Is A Child Of Ignorance

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.

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.

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

The Best Armor Is To Keep Out Of Gunshot.

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?

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.

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 Of Its Own Nature Is Prone To Suppose The Existence Of More Order And Regularity In The World Than It Finds.

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