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The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.

Francis Bacon

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Francis Bacon
Age: 65 †
Born: 1561
Born: January 22
Died: 1626
Died: April 9
Astrologer
Former Lord Chancellor
Judge
Lawyer
Philosopher
Politician
Writer
Francis Bacon Saint Albans
Francis Bacon St. Albans
Franciscus Bacon de Verulamio
Franciscus Baconus de Verulamio
Francis Bacon
1st Viscount St. Alban
Francis
Viscount Saint Alban
Baron of Verulam Bacon
Francis
Viscount St. Albans Verulam
Franciscus Bacon
Francis Bacon de Verulamius
Francis Bacon of Verulam
Francis
Viscount St. Alban
Like
Mirrors
Irregularly
False
Distorts
Humility
Mingling
Understanding
Subjectivity
Nature
Objectivity
Human
Rays
Humans
Receiving
Things
Mirror

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Men 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.
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Very few people have a natural feeling for painting, and so, of course, they naturally think that painting is an expression of the artist's mood. But it rarely is. Very often he may be in greatest despair and be painting his happiest paintings.
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Croesus said to Cambyses That peace was better than war because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons.
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The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
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By this means we presume we have established for ever, a true and legitimate marriage between the Empirical and Rational faculty whose fastidious and unfortunate divorce and separation hath troubled and disordered the whole race and generation of mankind.
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Boldness is a child of ignorance
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One 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.
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I hold every man a debtor to his profession from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto.
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I always think of myself not so much as a painter but as a medium for accident and chance.
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I work for posterity, these things requiring ages for their accomplishment.
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Base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark.
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A lie faces God and shrinks from man.
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Praise is the reflection of virtue.
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A man cannot speak to his son, but as a father to his wife, but as a husband to his enemy, but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak, as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person.
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I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him. If I do grow great, I'll grow less for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.
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A bachelor's life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.
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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.
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Chiefly the mold of a man's fortune is in his own hands.
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It is good discretion not make too much of any man at the first because one cannot hold out that proportion.
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In one and the same fire, clay grows hard and wax melts.
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