The Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England: Literary and professional works, v. 1-2. 1878-1874

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Longmans, 1890

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Page 489 - Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
Page 372 - Certainly, it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.
Page 372 - ... the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it ; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it; is the sovereign good of human nature.
Page 478 - I daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath...
Page 371 - ... a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it that men should love lies : where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets ; nor for advantage, as with the merchant ; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell : this same truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world half so stately and daintily as candlelights.
Page 411 - TRAVEL, in the younger sort, is a part of education ; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country, before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.
Page 489 - ... wit be 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 up 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 489 - 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. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned.
Page 391 - You may observe that amongst all the great and worthy persons (whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent) there is not one that hath been transported to the mad degree of love: which shows that great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion.
Page 374 - ... mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death; and therefore death is no such terrible enemy when a man hath so many attendants about him that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honour...

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