Bacon's Essays, Volume 2

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Longmans, Green, and Company, 1881
 

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Page 73 - 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 subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
Page 72 - 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.
Page 73 - Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
Page 54 - 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...
Page 74 - ... shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's 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 dif-ferences, 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:...
Page 55 - And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of music), than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight, than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air.
Page 49 - HOUSES are built to live in, and not to look on. Therefore let use be preferred before uniformity ; except where both may be had. Leave the goodly fabrics of houses for beauty only, to the enchanted palaces of the poets, who build them with small cost.
Page 56 - The green hath two pleasures ; the one, because nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn ; the other, because it will give you a fair alley in the midst, by which you may go in front upon a stately hedge, which is to enclose the Garden.
Page 45 - That is the best part of beauty, which a picture cannot express ; no, nor the first sight of the life. There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
Page 91 - Judges ought to be more learned than witty ; more reverend than plausible ; and more advised ' than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.

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