Francis Bacon

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men...the master of superstition is the people; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reverse order.

The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted ...but to weigh and consider.

If a man begins with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

Pieniądz jest dobrym sługą i złym panem.

Najlepszym sposobem odświeżenia pamięci o dobrym uczynku jest powtórzenie go.

Jeśli góra nie chce przyjść do Mahometa, Mahomet pójdzie do niej.

Argument jest jak strzał z kuszy - bywa równie skuteczny niezależnie od tego, czy strzelił olbrzym, czy karzeł.

It is as natural to die as to be born, and to a little infant perhaps the one is as painful as the other.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils, for time is the greatest innovator.

He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marry? "A young man not yet, and elder man not at all".

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.

Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.

What is it then to have or have not wife But single thraldom, or a double strife?

Rebellions of the belly are the worst.

The job of the artist is to deepen the mystery.

Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.

Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.

For those who intend to discover and to understand, not to indulge in conjectures and soothsaying, and rather than contrive imitation and fabulous worlds plan to look deep into the nature of the real world and to dissect it -- for them everything must be sought in things themselves.

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

If any human being earnestly desire to push on to new discoveries instead of just retaining and using the old; to win victories over Nature as a worker rather than over hostile critics as a disputant; to attain , in fact, clear and demonstrative knowlegde instead of attractive and probable theory; we invite him as a true son of Science to join our ranks. - from Novum Organum Prefatio. 1620

If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.

If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin with doubts, and we are patient in them, we shall end in certainties.

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

Man, being the servant and interpreter of nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. - from Novum Organum

Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.

No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of Truth.

Nothing is to be feared but fear.

Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

We cannot command nature except by obeying her.

Mądry człowiek stworzy więcej możliwości niż znajdzie.

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.

Riches are for spending

The joys of parents are secret and so are their griefs and fears

Revenge is a kind of wild justice,which the more mans nature runs to,the more ought law to weed it out.

All things are admired either because they are new or because they are great.

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge and keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

Kowledge itself is power

All colors will agree in the dark

Truth comes out of error more readily than out of confusion.

The genius of any single man can no more equal learning, than a private purse hold way with the exchequer.

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.

But the idols of the Market Place are the most troublesome of all: idols which have crept into the understanding through their alliances with words and names. For men believe that their reason governs words. But words turn and twist the understanding. This it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences inactive. Words are mostly cut to the common fashion and draw the distinctions which are most obvious to the common understanding. Whenever an understanding of greater acuteness or more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the true distinctions of nature, words complain.

A prudent question is one half of wisdom.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

Prawa są jak sieć pajęcza, w której więzną małe muchy, ale przez która przebijają się wielkie.

Istnieje w naturze wiele zagadnień, których nie można ani dostrzec z wystarczającą dokładnością, ani przedstawić dostatecznie jasno, ani wykorzystać dostatecznie zręcznie bez pomocy i interwencji matematyki.

Prawdziwa wiedza to znajomość przyczyn.

The 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.