Francis Bacon Wise Quotations

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

It is impossible to love and to be wise.

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marryA young man not yet, an elder man not at all.

He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marry? 'A young man not yet, an elder man not at all

It is impossible to love and be wise

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding that it can hold men's hearts by hopes when it cannot by satisfaction

The wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

The master of superstition, is the people; and in all superstition, wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.

Vain-glorious men are the scorn of the wise, the admiration of fools, the idols of paradise, and the slaves of their own vaunts.

One of the Seven [wise men of Greece] was wont to say: That laws were like cobwebs, where the small flies are caught and the great break through.

There are many wise men that have secret hearts and transparent countenances.

Be not penny-wise. Riches have wings. Sometimes they fly away of themselves, and sometimes they must be set flying to bring in more.

In all superstition wise men follow fools.

Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second. For there is a youth in thoughts, as well as in ages. And yet the invention of young men, is more lively than that of old; and imaginations stream into their minds better, and, as it were, more divinely.

I knew a wise man that had it for a by-word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, "Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner."

He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry? 'A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.'

There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise.

Crafty men condemn studies; Simple men admire them; And wise men use them: For they teach not their own use: but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation.