Francis Bacon Quotes

If any of my plays outlive me or get on library book shelves and somehow stay read, all of a sudden it's a testament to "that's part of our culture, that's part of our history."

Horace, in a particularly boastful mood, once said his verse would last as long as the vestal virgins kept going up the Capitoline Hill to worship at the temple of Jupiter. But Horace's poetry has lasted longer than Jupiter's religion, and Jupiter himself has only survived because he disappeared into literature.

Only well-written works will descend to posterity. Fulness of knowledge, interesting facts, even useful inventions, are no pledge of immortality, for they may be employed by more skilful hands; they are outside the man; the style is the man himself.

American Pie speaks to the loss that we feel. That's why that song has found the niche that it has.

The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.

An aging writer has the not insignificant satisfaction of a shelf of books behind him that, as they wait for their ideal readers to discover them, will outlast him for a while.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

When house and land are gone and spent, then learning is most excellent.

You can learn a line from a win and a book from a defeat.

Now all my teachers are dead except silence.

As any student of literature knows, the books that last are often not the books that are most popular when they are written. Both 'Moby Dick' and 'The Great Gatsby' were complete failures, critically and commercially, when they first appeared.

Never can the innate power of a work be hidden or locked away. A work of art can be forgotten by time; it can be forbidden and rejected but the elemental will always prevail over the ephemeral.

I'm always happy to be a part of history. When you're a part of history, you live forever. 'The T.A.M.I. Show' will live forever because now it's brand new. We did that 40-odd years ago, and people are really starting to see it now. I was a part of history when I recorded that show.

Empires dissolve and peoples disappear, song passes not away.

The people will perish if their scholars pass away.

They are not dead who live in the hearts they leave behind.

I wrote poems. That is my work. I am convinced... I believe that what I wrote will be useful to people not only now but in future generations.

A novel which survives, which withstands and outlives time, does do something more than merely survive. It does not stand still. It accumulates round itself the understanding of all these persons who bring to it something of their own. It acquires associations, it becomes a form of experience in itself, so that two people who meet can often make friends, find an approach to each other, because of this one great common experience they have had.

I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time

I wish I could write a book that will be read for as long as our civilization lasts. I would value it much more highly than any business success if I could contribute to an understanding of the world in which we live or, better yet, if I could help to preserve the economic and political system that has allowed me to flourish as a participant.

I think William Shakespeare was the wisest human being I ever heard of. To be perfectly frank, though, that's not saying much.

True taste is forever growing, learning, reading, worshipping, laying its hand upon its mouth because it is astonished, casting its shoes from off its feet because it finds all ground holy.

Every human being has gone through a tragedy of sorts. And the idea is that you have two paths you can take, you can find that alchemy that turns lead into gold, find that magic where you can see the loss as an entry point for learning and grow from it and become wiser and stronger.

The first among mankind will always be those who make something imperishable out of a sheet of paper, a canvas, a piece of marble, or a few sounds

Literature is an investment of genius which pays dividends to all subsequent times.