13 Relevant Quotes from Francis Bacon in Bacon's Essays

Bacon's Essays

Thirteen Relevant Quotes from Bacon's Essays
Francis Bacon, First Viscount St. Alban (1561-1626)
Pitt Press Series, Alfred S. West [editor], 1897

This blog post by Mary Katherine May of QualityMusicandBooks.com.

Of Truth

1. But I cannot tell: Truth is a naked and open day light that does not show the masks and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelight.

2. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man.

3. Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last summons to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men; It being foretold that, when Christ comes, He shall not find faith upon the earth.

Of Death

4. Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark.

Of Revenge

5. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.  (Proverbs 19:11 The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, and his glory is to overlook a transgression. NKJV)

6. This is certain: That a man that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

7. The virtue of adversity is fortitude; which in morals is the more heroic virtue.

8. We see in needlework and embroidery it is more pleasing to have lively work upon a dark and solemn background than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a light background. Judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye.

9. For prosperity does best bring to light vice, but adversity does best bring to light virtue.

Of Envy

10. A man that has no virtue in himself always envies virtue in others. For men’s minds will either feed upon their own good or upon the evil in others. And who wants the one will prey upon the other; and who is out of hope to attain to another’s virtue will seek to be even with him by trying to ruin him.

Of Great Place (High Office)

11. Men in high office are three times servants: servants of the sovereign or state; servants of reputation; and servants of business: so that they have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times.  It is a strange desire, to seek power and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others and to lose power over a man’s self.  The rising unto high office is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by the indignities that men come to dignities.

Of Atheism

12. It is true that a little philosophy inclines man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy brings men’s minds round to religion.

13. For none deny there is a God but those for whose advantage it would be that there were no God.