The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England: With a Life of the Author, Volume 1Parry & McMillan, 1848 |
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Common terms and phrases
action Advancement of Learning Ęsop affections amongst ancient answered Apophthegmes Aristippus Aristotle atheism Augustus Cęsar Bacon better body Cęsar cause chancellor church Cicero colour command commonly conceit counsel court death Demosthenes discourse divers divine doth envy error Essays Essex evil excellent favour fortune give goeth hath honour inquiry invention judge judgment Julius Cęsar justice kind king knowledge labour less light likewise lord Lord Bacon lord chancellor lordship Macedon majesty maketh man's manner matter means men's ment mind motion natural philosophy nature never Novum Organum observation opinion particular persons philosophy Plato pleasure Plutarch Pompey princes queen reason religion rest saith sciences Scriptures seemeth sense servants sort speak speech spirit Tacitus things thought tion touching true truth unto usury Vespasian virtue whereby wherein whereof whereupon wisdom wise words
Popular passages
Page 260 - The End of our Foundation is the knowledge of Causes and secret motions of things, and the enlarging of the bounds of Human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible.
Page 18 - I HAD rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind.
Page 5 - Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day ; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves...
Page xix - His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end.
Page 13 - But power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring; for good thoughts (though God accept them,) yet towards men are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act; and that cannot be without power and place, as the vantage and commanding ground.
Page lx - Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking; his language, where he could spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered.
Page 49 - STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business...
Page cxviii - ... wandering, let him study the mathematics ; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again ; if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen, for they are " Cymini sectores ;" if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call upon one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases : so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.
Page 49 - Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested ; that is, some books are to be read only in parts ; others to be read, but not curiously ;' and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
Page xiii - This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the schoolmen, who, having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading, (but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors, chiefly Aristotle their dictator, as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges...