Quotes By Francis Bacon

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.

Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

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

Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.

The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.

Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.

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

Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

Science is but an image of the truth.

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

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.

Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.

In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted... but to weigh and consider.

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

A bachelor's life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.