It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives
Francis BaconSeek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.
Francis BaconCertainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.
Francis BaconThere was never miracle wrought by God to convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a God.
Francis BaconI have to hope that my instincts will do the right thing, because I can't erase what I have done. And if I drew something first, then my paintings would be illustrations of drawings.
Francis BaconI would by all means have men beware, lest Æsop's pretty fable of the fly that sate [sic] on the pole of a chariot at the Olympic races and said, 'What a dust do I raise,' be verified in them. For so it is that some small observation, and that disturbed sometimes by the instrument, sometimes by the eye, sometimes by the calculation, and which may be owing to some real change in the heaven, raises new heavens and new spheres and circles.
Francis BaconThe human understanding, from its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater degree of order and equality in things than it really finds.
Francis BaconI want to make portraits and images. I don't know how. Out of despair, I just use paint anyway. Suddenly the things you make coagulate and take on just the shape you intend. Totally accurate marks, which are outside representational marks.
Francis BaconNo 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.
Francis BaconRevenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
Francis BaconFor cleanness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God, to society, and to ourselves.
Francis BaconThe cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this-that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.
Francis BaconMoreover, the works already known are due to chance and experiment rather than to sciences; for the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented; not methods of invention or directions for new works.
Francis BaconLiberty of speech invites and provokes liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man's knowledge.
Francis BaconMan, as the minister and interpreter of nature, is limited in act and understanding by his observation of the order of nature; neither his understanding nor his power extends further.
Francis BaconI think that one of the things is that, if you are going to decide to be a painter, you have got to decide that you are not going to be afraid of making a fool of yourself. I think another thing is to be able to find subjects which really absorb you to try and do. I feel that without a subject you automatically go back into decoration because you haven't got the subject which is always eating into you to bring it back - and the greatest art always returns you to the vulnerability of the human situation.
Francis BaconFor first of all we must prepare a Natural and Experimental History, sufficient and good; and this is the foundation of all; for we are not to imagine or suppose, but to discover, what nature does or may be made to do.
Francis BaconIt is nothing won to admit men with an open door, and to receive them with a shut and reserved countenance.
Francis BaconIf 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 BaconThe 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 BaconThere arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind.
Francis BaconBut the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men.
Francis Bacon