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Quotes by Sir Francis Bacon

The wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
– Sir Francis Bacon
The worst men often give the best advice.
– Sir Francis Bacon
The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.
– Sir Francis Bacon
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.
– Sir Francis Bacon
There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.
– Sir Francis Bacon
There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self.
– Sir Francis Bacon
There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible.
– Sir Francis Bacon
This communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half.
– Sir Francis Bacon
This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
– Sir Francis Bacon
We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.
– Sir Francis Bacon
We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.
– Sir Francis Bacon
What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.
– Sir Francis Bacon
When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.
– Sir Francis Bacon
With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Without friends the world is but a wilderness. There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his grieves to his friend, but he grieveth the less.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.
– Sir Francis Bacon
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.
– Sir Francis Bacon
For knowledge itself is power.
– Sir Francis Bacon
This is the foundation of all. We are not to imagine or suppose, but to discover, what nature does or may be made to do.
– Sir Francis Bacon
It is a strange desire, to seek power and lose liberty, or to seek power over others and to lose power over a man's self. The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains, and it is sometimes base; and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Believing that I was born for the service of mankind, and regarding the care of the commonwealth as a kind of common property which, like the air and the water, belongs to everybody, I set myself to consider in what way mankind might be best served, and what service I was myself best fitted by nature to perform.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Truth is a naked and open daylight… Truth which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the enquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it, and the belief of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.
– Sir Francis Bacon
By far the best proof is experience.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.
– Sir Francis Bacon
He of whom many are afraid ought to fear many.
– Sir Francis Bacon
I have taken all knowledge to by my province.
– Sir Francis Bacon
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.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to the more ought law to weed it out.
– Sir Francis Bacon
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.
– Sir Francis Bacon
The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship.
– Sir Francis Bacon
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
– Sir Francis Bacon
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Houses are built to live in, not to look on; therefore, let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Knowledge is power.
(Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est)
– Sir Francis Bacon
In charity there is no excess.
– Sir Francis Bacon
Man seeketh in society comfort, use and protection.
– Sir Francis Bacon
God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.
– Sir Francis Bacon
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.
– Sir Francis Bacon