Francis Bacon

(1561-1626)

• "A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds."

• "By far the best proof is experience."

• "Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable."

• "Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home."

• "Discretion in speech is more than eloquence."

• "He of whom many are afraid ought to fear many."

• "I have taken all knowledge to be my province."

• "If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties."

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

• "Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study."

• "Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider."

• "Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man."

• "Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to the more ought law to weed it out."

• "Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt."

• "Silence is the virtue of fools."

• "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention."

• "The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship."

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

• "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion."
  • Source: Of Beauty

• "Houses are built to live in, not to look on; therefore, let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had."
  • Source: Essays: Of Building (1623)

• "Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est"
  • Translation: "Knowledge is power."
  • Source: Meditationes Sacræ. De Hæresibus. (1597) (Religious Meditations, Of Heresies)

• "In charity there is no excess."
  • Source: Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature (1625)

• "Man seeketh in society comfort, use and protection."
  • Source: The Advancement of Learning (1605)

• "Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appears to be best in four things,—old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read."
  • Source: Apothegms. No. 97.

• "Imagination was given to man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for what he is."