FRANCIS BACON SAID
(PART
SIX)
1.
Princes
many times make themselves desires, and set their hearts upon toys; sometimes
upon a building; sometimes upon erecting an order; sometimes upon the advancing
of a person; sometimes upon obtaining excellency in some art or feat of the
hand.
2.
Kings
have to deal with their neighbours, their wives, their children, their prelates
or clergy; their nobles, their second –nobles or gentlemen , their merchants,
their commons, and their men of war; and from all these arise dangers, if care
and circumspection be not used.
3.
Princes
are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times; and which have
much veneration, but no rest. All precepts concerning kings are in effect comprehended
in those two remembrances : Remember that you are a man, and Remember that you
are a God, or God’s vice-regent: the one bridleth their power, and the other
their will.
4.
The
chief virtue of a ruler is to know his subjects.
5.
Fortune
is like the market ; where many time, if you can stay a little, the price will
fall.
6.
An
ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing in an orchard or
garden. And certainly men that are great
lovers of themselves waste the public. Divide with reason between self-love and
society; and be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others, especially
to thy king and country.
7.
Wisdom
for a man’s self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing. It is the
wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall. It
is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room
for him. It is in the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would
devour. But that which is specially to be noted is, that those which are many
times unfortunate. And whereas they have
all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy
of fortune; whose wings they thought by their self-wisdom to have pinioned.
8.
It
hath been an opinion that the French are wiser than they seem, and the
Spaniards seem wiser than they are. But however it be between nations , certainly
it is so between man and man. For as the Apostle saith of godliness, having a
show of godliness, but denying the power thereof; so certainly there are in
point of wisdom and sufficiency, that do nothing or little very solemnly.
9.
Whosoever
is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
10.
A principal fruit of friendship is the ease
and discharge of the fullness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all
kinds do cause and induce.
*****
G. R. Kanwal
30 October 2026
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