FRANCIS BACON QUOTES V

English philosopher (1561-1626)

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education, in the elder, a part of experience.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Travel", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: education


No people overcharged with tribute, is fit for empire.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of the True Greatness Of Kingdoms And Estates", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral


Let states that aim at greatness, take heed how their nobility and gentlemen do multiply too fast. For that maketh the common subject, grow to be a peasant and base swain, driven out of heart, and in effect but the gentleman's laborer.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of the True Greatness Of Kingdoms And Estates", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: nobility


No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic; and certainly to a kingdom or estate, a just and honorable war, is the true exercise. A civil war, indeed, is like the heat of a fever; but a foreign war is like the heat of exercise, and serveth to keep the body in health; for in a slothful peace, both courages will effeminate, and manners corrupt.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of the True Greatness Of Kingdoms And Estates", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: exercise


Examine thy customs of diet, sleep, exercise, apparel, and the like; and try, in any thing thou shalt judge hurtful, to discontinue it, by little and little; but so, as if thou dost find any inconvenience by the change, thou come back to it again: for it is hard to distinguish that which is generally held good and wholesome, from that which is good particularly, and fit for thine own body.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Regiment Of Health", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: change


Physicians are, some of them, so pleasing and conformable to the humor of the patient, as they press not the true cure of the disease; and some other are so regular, in proceeding according to art for the disease, as they respect not sufficiently the condition of the patient. Take one of a middle temper; or if it may not be found in one man, combine two of either sort; and forget not to call as well, the best acquainted with your body, as the best reputed of for his faculty.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Regiment Of Health", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: art


So saith Solomon, Where much is, there are many to consume it; and what hath the owner, but the sight of it with his eyes? The personal fruition in any man, cannot reach to feel great riches: there is a custody of them; or a power of dole, and donative of them; or a fame of them; but no solid use to the owner. Do you not see what feigned prices, are set upon little stones and rarities? and what works of ostentation are undertaken, because there might seem to be some use of great riches?

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Riches", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: fame


Therefore it is good for princes, if they use ambitious men, to handle it, so as they be still progressive and not retrograde; which, because it cannot be without inconvenience, it is good not to use such natures at all. For if they rise not with their service, they will take order, to make their service fall with them. But since we have said, it were good not to use men of ambitious natures, except it be upon necessity, it is fit we speak, in what cases they are of necessity. Good commanders in the wars must be taken, be they never so ambitious; for the use of their service, dispenseth with the rest; and to take a soldier without ambition, is to pull off his spurs.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Ambition", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: Men


Certainly custom is most perfect, when it beginneth in young years: this we call education; which is, in effect, but an early custom.

FRANCIS BACON

"Of Custom And Education", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral

Tags: custom


So again we find that many of the ancient bishops and fathers of the Church were excellently read and studied in all the learning of this heathen; insomuch that the edict of the Emperor Julianus (whereby it was interdicted unto Christians to be admitted into schools, lectures, or exercises of learning) was esteemed and accounted a more pernicious engine and machination against the Christian Faith than were all the sanguinary prosecutions of his predecessors; neither could the emulation and jealousy of Gregory, the first of that name, Bishop of Rome, ever obtain the opinion of piety or devotion; but contrariwise received the censure of humour, malignity, and pusillanimity, even amongst holy men; in that he designed to obliterate and extinguish the memory of heathen antiquity and authors. But contrariwise it was the Christian Church, which, amidst the inundations of the Scythians on the one side from the north-west, and the Saracens from the east, did preserve in the sacred lap and bosom thereof the precious relics even of heathen learning, which otherwise had been extinguished, as if no such thing had ever been.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning

Tags: church


The works or acts of merit towards learning are conversant about three objects—the places of learning, the books of learning, and the persons of the learned. For as water, whether it be the dew of heaven or the springs of the earth, doth scatter and leese itself in the ground, except it be collected into some receptacle where it may by union comfort and sustain itself; and for that cause the industry of man hath made and framed springheads, conduits, cisterns, and pools, which men have accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn with accomplishments of magnificence and state, as well as of use and necessity; so this excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descend from divine inspiration, or spring from human sense, would soon perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were not preserved in books, traditions, conferences, and places appointed, as universities, colleges, and schools, for the receipt and comforting of the same.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning

Tags: learning


The voice of Nature will consent, whether the voice of man do or no.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning

Tags: nature


Medicine is a science which hath been (as we have said) more professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the labour having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progression.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning

Tags: science


Silence is the virtue of fools.

FRANCIS BACON

De Augmentis Scientiarum

Tags: silence


As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: innovation


He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: children


A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

FRANCIS BACON

Essays

Tags: philosophy


Seek first the virtues of the mind; and other things either will come, or will not be wanted.

FRANCIS BACON

The Advancement of Learning

Tags: mind


It would be an 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.

FRANCIS BACON

Novum Organum


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

Essays

Tags: truth