Top 500 Francis Bacon Quotes (2024 Update)
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251. “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

252. “Nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn.”

— Francis Bacon

253. “Love and envy make a man pine, which other affections do not, because they are not so continual.”

— Francis Bacon

254. “Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.”

— Francis Bacon

255. “The End of our Foundation is the knowledge of Causes; and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of Human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible.”

— Francis Bacon

256. “A man that is young in years may be old in hours if he have lost no time.”

— Francis Bacon

257. “To say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men.”

— Francis Bacon

258. “Even within the most beautiful landscape, in the trees, under the leaves the insects are eating each other; violence is a part of life.”

— Francis Bacon

259. “Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.”

— Francis Bacon

260. “A man cannot speak to his son, but as a father; to his wife, but as a husband; to his enemy, but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak, as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person.”

— Francis Bacon

261. “All painting is an accident. But it’s also not an accident, because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve.”

— Francis Bacon

262. “Men in great place are thrice servants, servants to the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business, so as they have freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times.”

— Francis Bacon

263. “But the best demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual experiment.”

— Francis Bacon

264. “My praise shall be dedicated to the mind itself. The mind is the man, and the knowledge is the mind. A man is but what he knoweth. The mind is but an accident to knowledge, for knowledge is the double of that which is.”

— Francis Bacon

265. “If a man’s wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores, splitters of hairs.”

— Francis Bacon

266. “It has well been said that the arch-flatterer, with whom all petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man’s self.”

— Francis Bacon

267. “It was a high speech of Seneca that “The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.””

— Francis Bacon

268. “To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affection; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar.”

— Francis Bacon

269. “The noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men, which have sought to express the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed.”

— Francis Bacon

270. “All artists are vain, they long to be recognized and to leave something to posterity. They want to be loved, and at the same time they want to be free. But nobody is free.”

— Francis Bacon

271. “Certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.”

— Francis Bacon

272. “It was prettily devised of Aesop, The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said, what dust do I raise!”

— Francis Bacon

273. “Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.”

— Francis Bacon

274. “I always think of myself not so much as a painter but as a medium for accident and chance.”

— Francis Bacon

275. “The nature of things betrays itself more readily under the vexations of art than in its natural freedom.”

— Francis Bacon

276. “The zeal which begins with hypocrisy must conclude in treachery at first it deceives, at last it betrays.”

— Francis Bacon

277. “In revenge a man is but even with his enemy; for it is a princely thing to pardon, and Solomon saith it is the glory of a man to pass over a transgression.”

— Francis Bacon

278. “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.”

— Francis Bacon

279. “If you want to convey fact, this can only ever be done through a form of distortion. You must distort to transform what is called appearance into image.”

— Francis Bacon

280. “When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him.”

— Francis Bacon

281. “It is idle to expect any great advancement in science from the superinducing and engrafting of new things upon old. We must begin anew from the very foundations, unless we would revolve for ever in a circle with mean and contemptible progress.”

— Francis Bacon

282. “A man finds himself seven years older the day after his marriage.”

— Francis Bacon

283. “Philosophers make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high.”

— Francis Bacon

284. “Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.”

— Francis Bacon

285. “People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can’t fool the neighbors.”

— Francis Bacon

286. “I like, you may say, the glitter and colour that comes from the mouth, and I’ve always hoped in a sense to be able to paint the mouth like Monet painted a sunset.”

— Francis Bacon

287. “The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all as things now are with slight endeavour and scanty success.”

— Francis Bacon

288. “Such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happen much oftener.”

— Francis Bacon

289. “You cannot teach a child to take care of himself unless you will let him try to take care of himself. He will make mistakes and out of these mistakes will come his wisdom.”

— Francis Bacon

290. “There is no such flatterer as is a man’s self.”

— Francis Bacon

291. “Let no one think or maintain that a person can search too far or be too well studied in either the book of God’s word or the book of God’s works.”

— Francis Bacon

292. “Painting is the pattern of one’s own nervous system being projected on canvas.”

— Francis Bacon

293. “Above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is Nunc dimittis, when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy.”

— Francis Bacon

294. “The best armor is to keep out of gunshot.”

— Francis Bacon

295. “A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.”

— Francis Bacon

296. “Why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me?”

— Francis Bacon

297. “Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards new men when they rise. For the distance is altered, and it is like a deceit of the eye, that when others come on they think themselves go back.”

— Francis Bacon

298. “The world’s a bubble, and the life of man, Less than a span.”

— Francis Bacon

299. “Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.”

— Francis Bacon

300. “I loathe my own face, and I’ve done self-portraits because I’ve had nobody else to do.”

— Francis Bacon