Ornamenta Rationalia

The Ornamenta Rationalia is a collection of aphorisms published by Francis Bacon along with his Essays.

The best part of beauty is that which a picture cannot express.

Quotes

• Arcum intensio frangit; animum, remissio.
  • Much bending breaks the bow. Much unbending, the mind.

• Cum vitia prosint, peccat qui recte facit.
  • If vices were profitable, the virtuous man would be the sinner.

• The flood of grief decreaseth, when it can swell no higher.

• The fortune which nobody sees makes a man happy and unenvied.

• Malus ubi bonum se simulat, tunc est pessimus.
  • A bad man is worst when he pretends to be a saint.

• They live ill, who think to live for ever.

• The coward calls himself a cautious man; and the miser says, he is frugal.

• It is a strange desire which men have, to seek power and lose liberty.

• A mixture of falsehood is like alloy in gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it debaseth it.

• Death ... extinguishes envy.

• He that studieth revenge, keepeth his own wounds green.

• If [things] be not tossed upon the arguments of counsel, they will be tossed upon- the waves of fortune.

• Extreme self-lovers will set a man's house on fire, though it were but to roast their eggs.

• Riches are the baggage of virtue; they cannot be spared nor left behind, but they hinder the march.

• Riches have sold more men than ever they have bought.

• A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other.

• The beautiful prove accomplished, but not of great spirit; and study, for the most part, rather behaviour than virtue.

• The best part of beauty is that which a picture cannot express.

• While a man maketh his train longer, he maketh his wings shorter.

• Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity the blessing of the New.