The collection / 380 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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380 results · Page 11 of 16Play this collection ▷

01c. 1593 AD

Bashfulness is a great hindrance to a man, both in uttering his sentiments and in understanding what is proposed to him; 'tis therefore good to press forward with discretion, both in discourse and company of the better sort.

Francis Bacon / quote

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02c. 1593 AD

As those wines which flow from the first treading of the grapes are sweeter and better than those forced out by the press, which gives them the roughness of the husk and the stone, so are those doctrines best and sweetest which flow from a gentle crush of the Scriptures and are not wrung into controversies and commonplaces.

Francis Bacon / quote

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03c. 1593 AD

There was never law, or sect, or opinion, did so much magnify goodness as the Christian religion doth.

Francis Bacon / quote

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04c. 1593 AD

There was never found in any age of the world, either philosophy, or sect or religion, or law or discipline, which did so highly exalt the good of communion, and depress good private and particular, as the holy Christian faith: hence it clearly appears that it was one and the same God that gave the Christian law to men who gave those laws of nature to the creatures.

Francis Bacon / quote

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05c. 1593 AD

Neither the naked hand, nor the understanding, left to itself, can do much; the work is accomplished by instruments and helps of which the need is not less for the understanding than the hand.

Francis Bacon / quote

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06c. 1593 AD

True dispatch is a rich thing; for time is the measure of business, as money is of wares, and business is bought at a dear hand where there is small dispatch.

Francis Bacon / quote

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07c. 1593 AD

'Tis of great importance to the honor of learning that men of business should know erudition is not like a lark, which flies high, and delights in nothing but singing; but that 't is rather like a hawk, which soars aloft indeed, but can stoop when she finds it convenient, and seize her prey.

Francis Bacon / quote

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08c. 1593 AD

It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such an opinion as is unworthy of him; for the one is unbelief, and the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity.

Francis Bacon / quote

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09c. 1593 AD

Habit, if wisely and skillfully formed, becomes truly a second nature, as the common saying is; but unskillfully and unmethodically directed, it will be as it were the ape of nature, which imitates nothing to the life, but only clumsily and awkwardly.

Francis Bacon / quote

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10c. 1593 AD

Hope is the most beneficial of all the affections, and doth much to the prolongation of life, if it be not too often frustrated; but entertaineth the fancy with an expectation of good.

Francis Bacon / quote

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11c. 1593 AD

A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds: therefore let him seasonably water the one and destroy the other.

Francis Bacon / quote

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12c. 1593 AD

The pleasure and delight of knowledge far surpasseth all other in nature. We see in all other pleasures there is satiety; and after they be used, their verdure departeth, which showeth well that they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures; and that it was the novelty which pleased, not the quality; and therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes turn melancholy. But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable.

Francis Bacon / quote

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13c. 1593 AD

Logic differeth from rhetoric as the fist from the palm; the one close, the other at large.

Francis Bacon / quote

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14c. 1593 AD

Nature will be buried a great time, and yet revive upon the occasion or temptation: like as it was with Æsop's damsel, turned from a cat to a woman, who sat very demurely at the board's end till a mouse ran before her.

Francis Bacon / quote

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15c. 1593 AD

Great effects come of industry and perseverance; for audacity doth almost bind and mate the weaker sort of minds.

Francis Bacon / quote

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16c. 1593 AD

It is a point of cunning to wait upon him with whom you speak with your eye, as the Jesuits give it in precept; for there be many wise men that have secret hearts and transparent countenances.

Francis Bacon / quote

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17c. 1593 AD

The eye of the understanding is like the eye of the sense; for as you may see great objects through small crannies or holes, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances.

Francis Bacon / quote

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18c. 1593 AD

Providence for war is the best prevention of it.

Francis Bacon / quote

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19c. 1593 AD

Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing: it is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house some time before it fall; it is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him; it is the wisdom of the crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour.

Francis Bacon / quote

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20c. 1593 AD

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.

Francis Bacon / quote

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21c. 1593 AD

Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.

Francis Bacon / quote

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22c. 1593 AD

the serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself.

Francis Bacon / quote

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23c. 1593 AD

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

Francis Bacon / quote

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24c. 1593 AD

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. Therefore atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no further: and we see the times inclined to atheism (as the time of Augustus Cæsar) were civil times. But superstition hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new primum mobile, that ravisheth all the spheres of government. The master of superstition is the people; and in all superstition wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.

Francis Bacon / quote

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