Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban PC KCwas an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, and author. He served both as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England. After his death, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth21 January 1561
writing dust water
Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns the water, or but writes in dust.
time artist years
No artist knows in his own lifetime whether what he does will be the slightest good, because it takes at least seventy-five to a hundred years before the thing begins to sort itself out.
reality matter traps
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.
patterns canvas painting
Painting is the pattern of one's own nervous system being projected on canvas.
painting nervous paint
We only have our nervous system to paint.
art order desire
Great art is deeply ordered. Even if within the order there may be enormously instinctive and accidental things, nevertheless they come out of a desire for ordering and for returning fact onto the nervous system in a more violent way.
lying illustration mystery
The mystery lies in the irrationality by which you make appearance - if it is not irrational, you make illustration.
depressing men hands
A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others. For men's minds, will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one, will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope, to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by depressing another's fortune.
bees juice amber
The bee enclosed and through the amber shown Seems buried in the juice which was his own.
men vices would-be
If vices were profitable, the virtuous man would be the sinner.
men riches kindred
Men leave their riches either to their kindred or their friends, and moderate portions prosper best in both.
advice ought
He of whom many are afraid ought himself to fear many.
motivational hands mold
The mold of our fortunes is in our own hands.
usa liberty debt
Every person born in the USA is endowed with life, liberty, and a substantial share of the national debt.