The Essays Or Counsels, Moral, Economical and Political: With Elegant Sentences, Hints for Conversation and on the Choice of Good and Evil |
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Page 3
... better , but it embaseth it . For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent , which goeth basely upon the belly , and not upon the feet . There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame , as to be B 2 OF TRUTH .
... better , but it embaseth it . For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent , which goeth basely upon the belly , and not upon the feet . There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame , as to be B 2 OF TRUTH .
Page 6
... Better , ” saith he , " who considers Death , or the extreme end of life , among the common circumstances or gifts of nature . " It is as natural to die , as to be born ; and to a little infant perhaps the one is as painful as the other ...
... Better , ” saith he , " who considers Death , or the extreme end of life , among the common circumstances or gifts of nature . " It is as natural to die , as to be born ; and to a little infant perhaps the one is as painful as the other ...
Page 8
... better , when atheists and profane persons do hear of so many discordant and contrary opinions in Religion ; it doth avert them from the Church , and maketh them to sit down in the chair of the scorners . It is but a light thing to be ...
... better , when atheists and profane persons do hear of so many discordant and contrary opinions in Religion ; it doth avert them from the Church , and maketh them to sit down in the chair of the scorners . It is but a light thing to be ...
Page 13
... better to make the cause of Religion to descend to the cruel and execrable actions of murdering princes , butchery of people , and subversion of states and governments ? Surely this is to bring down the Holy Ghost , instead of the ...
... better to make the cause of Religion to descend to the cruel and execrable actions of murdering princes , butchery of people , and subversion of states and governments ? Surely this is to bring down the Holy Ghost , instead of the ...
Page 14
... better than me ? And if any man should do wrong merely out of ill - nature , why ? yet it is but like the thorn or briar , which prick and scratch , because they can do no other . The most tolerable sort of Revenge , is for those wrongs ...
... better than me ? And if any man should do wrong merely out of ill - nature , why ? yet it is but like the thorn or briar , which prick and scratch , because they can do no other . The most tolerable sort of Revenge , is for those wrongs ...
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The Essays Or Counsels, Moral, Economical and Political: With Elegant ... Francis Bacon No preview available - 2020 |
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Popular passages
Page 3 - It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tost upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below : but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene,) and to see the errors and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below:" so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride.
Page 17 - Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes ; and ad.versity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground : judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. - Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant where they are incensed or crushed : for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity...
Page 1 - WHAT is Truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness', and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting.
Page 4 - MEN fear Death, as children fear to go in the dark ; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin and passage to another world, is holy and religious ; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes mixture of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in some of the friars...
Page 64 - IT were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely: and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity. Plutarch saith well to that purpose:
Page 103 - Pythagoras is dark, but true, " cor ne edito," — " eat not the heart." Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends to open themselves unto, are cannibals of their own hearts: but one thing is most admirable, wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship, which is, that this communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects, for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in...
Page 174 - GOD ALMIGHTY first planted a garden. And, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures ; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without which buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks.
Page 108 - A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them : a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate, or beg, and a number of the like : but all these things are graceful in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own.
Page 131 - It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people and wicked, condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant ; and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation ; for they will ever live like rogues » and not fall to work, but be lazy and do mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country, to the discredit of the plantation.
Page 98 - IT had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words than in that speech, " Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god...