# Quote — Francis Bacon, The Essays

> Men mark when they hit, and never mark when they miss; as they do generally also of dreams.... probable conjectures, or obscure traditions, many times turn themselves into prophecies; while the nature of man, which coveteth divination, thinks it no peril to foretell that which indeed they do but collect... almost all of them, being infinite in number, have been impostures, and by idle and crafty brains merely contrived and feigned, after the event past.

- Author: [Francis Bacon](https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon.md)
- Book: [The Essays](https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-essays.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Essays_(Francis_Bacon)#Of_Prophecies) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-essays/men-mark-when

## More from this book

> She gathereth strength in going; that she goeth upon the ground, and yet hideth her head in the clouds; that in the daytime she sitteth in a watch tower, and flieth most by night; that she mingleth things done, with things not done; and that she is a terror to great cities.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-essays/she-gathereth-strength.md)

> Let not judges also be ignorant of their own right, as to think there is not left to them, as a principal part of their office, a wise use and application of laws.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-essays/let-not-judges.md)

> In fame of learning, the flight will be slow without some feathers of ostentation. Qui de contemnenda gloria libros scribunt, nomen, suum inscribunt. Socrates, Aristotle, Galen, were men full of ostentation. Certainly vain-glory helpeth to perpetuate a man's memory; and virtue was never so beholding to human nature, as it received his due at the second hand.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-essays/in-fame-of-learning.md)