Francis Bacon
It was prettily devised of Aesop, The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said, what dust do I raise!Collection: Dust
It is by discourse that men associate, and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obsesses the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into innumerable and inane controversies and fancies.Collection: Learning
Riches are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions; therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion.Collection: Honor
Observation and experiment for gathering material, induction and deduction for elaborating it: these are are only good intellectual tools.Collection: Science
Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.Collection: Friendship
No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common notions, and to apply the understanding, thus made fair and even, to a fresh examination of particulars. Thus it happens that human knowledge, as we have it, is a mere medley and ill-digested mass, made up of much credulity and much accident, and also of the childish notions which we at first imbibed.Collection: Knowledge
It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.Collection: Hurt
There ought to be gardens for all months in the year, in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season.Collection: Spring
First the amendment of their own minds. For the removal of the impediments of the mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune than the obtaining fortune will remove the impediments of the mind.Collection: Mind
We must see whether the same clock with weights will go faster at the top of a mountain or at the bottom of a mine; it is probable, if the pull of the weights decreases on the mountain and increases in the mine, that the earth has real attraction.Collection: Real
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.Collection: Dream
A king that would not feel his crown too heavy for him, must wear it every day; but if he think it too light, he knoweth not of what metal it is made.Collection: Kings
To be free minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one of the best precepts of long lasting.Collection: Happiness
is made to be attended and applied."Collection: But Passed It Over Without Note
It has well been said that the arch-flatterer, with whom all petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man's self.Collection: Men
Vices of the time; vices of the man.Collection: Men
Wise sayings are not only for ornament, but for action and business, having a point or edge, whereby knots in business are pierced and discovered.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Knowledge
It’s not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong; not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich; not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned; and not what we profess but what we practice that gives us integrity.Collection: Strong
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.Collection: Book
Books speak plain when counselors blanch.Collection: Book
God’s first creature, which was light.Collection: Firsts
But the images of men’s wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation.Collection: Book
The images of mens wits and knowledge remain in books. They generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages.Collection: Book