Since custom is the principal magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavor to obtain good customs.
Francis BaconI loathe my own face, and I've done self-portraits because I've had nobody else to do.
Francis BaconThis is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
Francis BaconPraise from the common people is generally false, and rather follows the vain than the virtuous.
Francis BaconThe universe must not be narrowed down to the limit of our understanding, but our understanding must be stretched and enlarged to take in the image of the universe as it is discovered.
Francis BaconThe nature of things betrays itself more readily under the vexations of art than in its natural freedom.
Francis BaconSome artists leave remarkable things which, a 100 years later, don't work at all. I have left my mark; my work is hung in museums, but maybe one day the Tate Gallery or the other museums will banish me to the cellar... you never know.
Francis BaconThe men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course, it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.
Francis BaconI don't think people are born artists; I think it comes from a mixture of your surroundings, the people you meet, and luck.
Francis BaconNatural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.
Francis BaconWe think according to nature. We speak according to rules. We act according to custom.
Francis BaconIf there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire.
Francis BaconIt 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 BaconSince my logic aims to teach and instruct the understanding, not that it may with the slender tendrils of the mind snatch at and lay hold of abstract notions (as the common logic does), but that it may in very truth dissect nature, and discover the virtues and actions of bodies, with their laws as determined in matter; so that this science flows not merely from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things.
Francis BaconThe root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.
Francis BaconOne always starts work with the subject, no matter how tenuous it is, and one constructs an artificial structure by which one can trap the reality of the subject-matter that one has started from.
Francis BaconNothing opens the heart like a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes...and whatever lies upon the heart.
Francis BaconIf we are to achieve things never before accomplished we must employ methods never before attempted
Francis BaconMen fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.
Francis BaconThe inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or the wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.
Francis BaconThere were taken apples, and ... closed up in wax. ... After a month's space, the apple inclosed in was was as green and fresh as the first putting in, and the kernals continued white. The cause is, for that all exclusion of open air, which is ever predatory, maintaineth the body in its first freshness and moisture.
Francis BaconHe that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marryA young man not yet, an elder man not at all.
Francis BaconTravel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.
Francis BaconTo say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men.
Francis BaconPeople have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can't fool the neighbors.
Francis BaconThe creative process is a cocktail of instinct, skill, culture and a highly creative feverishness. It is not like a drug; it is a particular state when everything happens very quickly, a mixture of consciousness and unconsciousness , of fear and pleasure; it's a little like making love, the physical act of love.
Francis BaconI use all sorts of things to work with: old brooms, old sweaters, and all kinds of peculiar tools and materials... I paint to excite myself, and make something for myself.
Francis BaconHe was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry? 'A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.'
Francis BaconBut by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses; in that things which strike the sense outweigh things which do not immediately strike it, though they be more important. Hence it is that speculation commonly ceases where sight ceases; insomuch that of things invisible there is little or no observation.
Francis Bacon