Top 500 Francis Bacon Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.”

— Francis Bacon

202. “Why should a man be in love with his fetters, though of gold?”

— Francis Bacon

203. “But by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this-that men despair and think things impossible.”

— Francis Bacon

204. “All the crimes on earth do not destroy so many of the human race, nor alienate so much property, as drunkenness.”

— Francis Bacon

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

— Francis Bacon

206. “The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding.”

— Francis Bacon

207. “It is good discretion not make too much of any man at the first; because one cannot hold out that proportion.”

— Francis Bacon

208. “The more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxicateth.”

— Francis Bacon

209. “For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts.”

— Francis Bacon

210. “If I sit and daydream, the images rush by like a succession of colored slides.”

— Francis Bacon

211. “By indignities men come to dignities.”

— Francis Bacon

212. “Gardening is the purest of human pleasures.”

— Francis Bacon

213. “When Christ came into the world, peace was sung; and when He went out of the world, peace was bequeathed.”

— Francis Bacon

214. “If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the foundations of knowledge in mathematics.”

— Francis Bacon

215. “I think I tend to destroy the better paintings, or those that have been better to a certain extent. I try and take them further, and they lose all their qualities, and they lose everything. I think I would say that I destroy all the better paintings.”

— Francis Bacon

216. “I’ll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him. If I do grow great, I’ll grow less; for I’ll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.”

— Francis Bacon

217. “States, as great engines, move slowly.”

— Francis Bacon

218. “But men must know, that in this theatre of man’s life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.”

— Francis Bacon

219. “Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.”

— Francis Bacon

220. “I hold every man a debtor to his profession.”

— Francis Bacon

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

— Francis Bacon

222. “Wounds cannot be cured without searching.”

— Francis Bacon

223. “Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in science by reverence for antiquity, by the authority of men counted great in philosophy, and then by general consent.”

— Francis Bacon

224. “Atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man.”

— Francis Bacon

225. “Mysteries are due to secrecy.”

— Francis Bacon

226. “Money is like muck, not good unless spread.”

— Francis Bacon

227. “You want accuracy, but not representation. If you know how to make the figuration, it doesn’t work. Anything you can make, you make by accident. In painting, you have to know what you do, not how, when you do it.”

— Francis Bacon

228. “As the births of living creatures are at first ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.”

— Francis Bacon

229. “A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.”

— Francis Bacon

230. “The bee enclosed and through the amber shown Seems buried in the juice which was his own.”

— Francis Bacon

231. “Images also help me find and realise ideas. I look at hundreds of very different, contrasting images and I pinch details from them, rather like people who eat from other people’s plates.”

— Francis Bacon

232. “A good name is like precious ointment ; it filleth all round about, and will not easily away; for the odors of ointments are more durable than those of flowers.”

— Francis Bacon

233. “There are Idols which we call Idols of the Market. For Men associate by Discourse, and a false and improper Imposition of Words strangely possesses the Understanding, for Words absolutely force the Understanding, and put all Things into Confusion.”

— Francis Bacon

234. “Let every student of nature take this as his rule, that whatever the mind seizes upon with particular satisfaction is to be held in suspicion.”

— Francis Bacon

235. “Learning hath his infancy, when it is but beginning and almost childish; then his youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile; then his strength of years, when it is solid and reduced; and lastly his old age, when it waxeth dry and exhaust.”

— Francis Bacon

236. “The voice of the people has about it something divine: for how otherwise can so many heads agree together as one?”

— Francis Bacon

237. “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 are to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”

— Francis Bacon

238. “There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little, and therefore men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not keep their suspicions in smother.”

— Francis Bacon

239. “It is the wisdom of the crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour.”

— Francis Bacon

240. “Suspicion amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they never fly by twilight.”

— Francis Bacon

241. “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.”

— Francis Bacon

242. “There is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals.”

— Francis Bacon

243. “Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.”

— Francis Bacon

244. “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.”

— Francis Bacon

245. “Riches are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions; therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion.”

— Francis Bacon

246. “Base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark.”

— Francis Bacon

247. “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

248. “Envy is ever joined with the comparing of a man’s self; and where there is no comparison, no envy.”

— Francis Bacon

249. “He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay of a whole age.”

— Francis Bacon

250. “Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body, and it addeth no small reverence to men’s manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.”

— Francis Bacon