213 quotes
I have often thought upon death, and I find it the least of all evils.
For knowledge, too, is itself a power.
Time, which is the author of authors.
The Advancement of Learning (1605)
Silence is the virtue of a fool.
The Advancement of Learning (1605)
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess, neither can angel or man come in danger by it.
Our Saviour Christ... not being like man, which knows man's thoughts by his words, but knowing man's thoughts immediately, He never answered their words, but their thoughts.
Do not wonder, if the common people speak more truly than those of high rank; for they speak with more safety.
What is truth? said jesting Pilate, but would not stay for an answer.
There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine. That is to say, between certain empty dogmas, and the true signatures and marks set upon the works of creation as they are found in nature.
Novum Organum (1620)
For cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves.
What then remains but that we still should cry
Not to be born, or, being born, to die?
The World (1629)
Certainly it is a heaven upon earth to have a man's mind to move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.
This history I call Primary History, or the Mother History.
There be three things which make a nation great and prosperous: a fertile soil, busy workshops, easy conveyance for men and goods from place to place.
States as great engines move slowly.
The Advancement of Learning (1605)
It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.
Novum Organum (1620)
They that deny a God, destroy man's nobility; for 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.
Essays (1625)
All nations have equity. But some have law and equity mixed in the same Court, which is worse; and some have it distinguished in several Courts, which is better.
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 to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
Meditationes sacræ (1597)
One of the Seven was wont to say: "That laws were like cobwebs; where the small flies were caught, and the great brake through."