Character of Lord Bacon: His Life and Works

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Maxwell, 1835 - 367 páginas

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Página 180 - I do not know what I may appear to the World ; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Página 107 - For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff, and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit.
Página 107 - ... as if there were sought in knowledge a couch, whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit ; or a tarrasse for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon ; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention ; or a shop for profit or sale ; and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's estate.
Página 107 - But the greatest error of all the rest, is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge : for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity, and inquisitive appetite ; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight ; sometimes for ornament and reputation ; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction ; and most times for lucre and profession...
Página 17 - No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss.
Página 107 - But a just story of learning, containing the antiquities and originals of knowledges and their sects, their inventions, their traditions, their diverse administrations and managings, their flourishings, their oppositions, decays, depressions, oblivions, removes, with the causes and occasions of them, and all other events concerning learning, throughout the ages of the world, I may truly affirm to be wanting.
Página 59 - Remember, 0 Lord ! how thy servant hath walked before thee ; remember what I have first sought, and what hath been principal in my intentions. I have loved thy assemblies, I have mourned for the divisions of thy church, I have delighted in the Brightness of thy sanctuary. This vine, which thy right hand hath planted in this nation, I have ever prayed unto thee, that it might have the first and the latter rain, and that it might stretch her branches tcrthe seas, and to the floods.
Página 104 - And that learning should take up too much time or leisure ; I answer, the most active or busy man that hath been or can be, hath (no question) many vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides and returns of business (except he be either tedious and of no dispatch, or lightly and unworthily ambitious to meddle in things that may be 10 better done by others...
Página 134 - For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence ; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced.
Página 198 - From these and all long errors of the way, In which our wandering predecessors went, And, like th' old Hebrews, many years did stray In deserts but of small extent, Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last; The barren wilderness he past; Did on the very border stand Of the blest promised land, And from the mountain's top of his exalted wit, Saw it himself, and shew'd us it.

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