213 quotes
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
The folly of one man is the fortune of another.
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 humour of a scholar.
The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.
Novum Organum (1620)
Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.
The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search for truth. So it does more harm than good.
Novum Organum (1620)
There was never law, or sect, or opinion did so much magnify goodness, as the Christian religion doth.
Aristotle (…) a mere bond-servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious and well nigh useless.
Rerum Novarum (1605)
Extreme self-lovers will set a man's house on fire, though it were but to roast their eggs.
Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
There is a cunning which we in England call the turning of the cat in the pan.
Houses are built to live in, not to look on; therefore, let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had.
Words, as a Tartar's bow, do shoot back upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightily entangle and pervert the judgment.
In a slothfull peace both courages will effeminate, and manners corrupt.
Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.
The cord breaketh at last by the weakest pull.
Libraries are as the shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.
Libraries: Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)
The general root of superstition: namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.
The Works of Francis Bacon (1819)
God never wrought miracle, to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
Essays (1625)
Cato said the best way to keep good acts in memory was to refresh them with new.
Apophthegms (1624)