Browse 6 quotations connecting Francis Bacon with Wisdom, with meanings, source notes and related themes.
Sources represented here include Of Revenge, Of Studies, Of Truth.
“A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.”
Revenge can keep an injury psychologically active long after the original event, making resentment a way of repeatedly reopening the hurt.
Bacon, “Of Revenge”; the sentence continues by contrasting revenge with wounds that would otherwise heal.
“In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.”
Bacon argues that retaliation merely mirrors the wrong, whereas refusing revenge can restore agency by ending the cycle instead of remaining governed by the injury.
Francis Bacon, essay IV ‘Of Revenge,’ represented by Project Gutenberg #575. The frozen catalog sentence capitalizes the extracted opening ‘In’ and ends after ‘superior’; the witness reads it inside the longer sentence beginning ‘Certainly, in taking revenge...’ and continuing ‘for it is a prince's part to pardon.’ It remains early-modern moral and legal-political essay argument rather than modern clinical anger guidance.
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”
Not every book deserves the same kind of attention; readers should match effort and depth to the value and purpose of the work.
Essay “Of Studies”; Bacon distinguishes different depths and purposes of reading.
“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.”
Bacon describes reading as active judgment rather than passive agreement or reflexive opposition, making careful consideration the central habit of serious study.
Of Studies, in Bacon’s instructions for how different kinds of books should be read.
“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.”
Bacon joins truth with charity and steadiness, presenting intellectual honesty as part of a well-ordered mind rather than a weapon for pride.
Francis Bacon, 'Of Truth,' essay I in the 1625 Essays; independently checked against the validated 1884 Works of Francis Bacon, Volume I scan leaf 139. The retained sentence closes Bacon's theological/philosophical truth discussion by linking charity, providence and truth; it is explicitly early-modern Christian-philosophical rhetoric, not clinical or scientific evidence.
“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”
Intellectual confidence can be improved by beginning with questions rather than pretending certainty too early.
The Advancement of Learning, First Book, Project Gutenberg #5500, transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition. Bacon contrasts impatience of doubt with mature suspension of judgment and then sets out two ways of contemplation before saying that beginning with certainties ends in doubts while beginning with doubts can end in certainties. It remains early-modern epistemological argument rather than a modern experimental rule for scientific method.
