Quotes by Francis Bacon

“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”

“Beware the man of one book.”

“We go to a book as Narcissus went to the fountain, see ourselves therein, and are enamored”

“Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.”

“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.”

“Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.”

“Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.”

“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”

“The wise man questions the wisdom of others because he questions his own, the foolish man, because it is different from his own.”

“I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day.”

“A prudent question is one half of wisdom.”

“Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is”

“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.”

“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.”

“Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, but to weigh and consider . . . Histories make men wise.”

“Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.”

“Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant”

“A classic is a book which people praise and dont read.”

“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”

“It is all very well to be able to write books, but can you waggle your ears?”