Quotes by Francis Bacon

If a mans wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.

It is impossible to love and to be wise.

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

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.

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a mans own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.

Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.

By indignities men come to dignities.

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.

Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness, as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns: children, women, old folks, sick folks.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils for time is the greatest innovator.

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.

“A man that is young in years may be old in hours if he have lost no time. ”

“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”

“Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.”

“Nay, the same Solomon the king, although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly, The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out; as if, according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide His works, to the end to have them found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be Gods playfellows in that game”

“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.”

“Wonder is the seed of knowledge”

“A little philosophy inclineth mans mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth mens minds about to religion”