Quotes
from Francis Bacon - Seek ye first the good things of the mind
“Natural
abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.”
―
Francis Bacon
“To
spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is
affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar”
―
Francis Bacon, The Essays
“If
a man is gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows that he is a citizen of
the world.”
―
Francis Bacon
“Those
who have handled sciences have been either men of experiment or men of dogmas.
The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the
reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But
the bee takes a middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the
garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.
Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy; for it neither relies
solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it take the matter which
it gathers from natural history and mechanical experiments and lay it up in the
memory whole, as it finds it, but lays it up in the understanding altered and
digested.”
―
Francis Bacon
“Travel,
in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of
experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into
the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.”
―
Francis Bacon
“Seek
ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest shall be provided or its
loss shall not be felt.”
―
Sir Francis Bacon
“Books
must follow sciences, and not sciences books."
[Proposition
touching Amendment of Laws]”
―
Francis Bacon
“For
no man can forbid the spark nor tell whence it may come.”
―
Francis Bacon
“Choose
the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.”
―
Sir Francis Bacon
“If
money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so
properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.”
―
Francis Bacon
“Libraries
are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true
virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.”
―
Francis Bacon
“Nay,
the same Solomon the king, although he excelled in the glory of treasure and
magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance,
of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those
glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith
expressly, "The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the
king is to find it out;" as if, according to the innocent play of
children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide His works, to the end to have
them found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be
God's playfellows in that game”
―
Francis Bacon, The Oxford Francis Bacon IV: The Advancement of Learning
“We
are much beholden to Machiavelli and others, that write what men do, and not
what they ought to do . For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with
the columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the
serpent; his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity,
his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil. For
without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced. Nay, an honest man can do no good
upon those that are wicked, to reclaim them, without the help of the knowledge
of evil.”
―
Frances Bacon
