Francis Bacon Quotes

Children are the only form of immortality that we can be sure of.

Creativity is a yearning for immortality

Children sweeten labours. But they make misfortune more bitter. They increase the care of life. But they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity of generation is common to beasts. But memory, merit and noble works are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men which have sought to express the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed.

If I have no children what would be the point of living.

The most important mark I will leave on this world is my son.

Art is longer than life.

He wants to live on through something-and in his case, his masterpiece is his son. all of us want that, and it gets more poignant as we get more anonymous in this world.

I am the family face; flesh perishes, I live on.

As you get older, subconsciously you start thinking about mortality and protecting your offspring. It opens up a whole new avenue of life experiences.

Poets have said that the reason to have children is to give yourself immortality. Immortality? Now that I have five children, my only hope is that they are all out of the house before I die.

The future that I will not live to see is the one my children will live in. That's my immortality. And I shouldn't try to mortgage theirs for my benefit.

Having a child is sowing the seeds of your own obsolescence: birth is the fuse that leads to that other thing. You appear, you replace yourself, you die.

Man the individual consoles himself for his passing with the thought of the offspring or the works which he leaves behind.

When you have a child, you think about your own mortality.

Art is the closest you can get to immortality, though it's a poor substitute - you're working for people not yet born - and people want it because it is brilliant. It ends up in museums anyway; the rich have to give it back to the people, it's their only option. There are no pockets in a shroud.

The man, the writer, the instrument of the creation will die, but his creation does not die.

As long as my ballets are danced, I will live.

By the creative act, we are able to reach beyond our own death.

A man's immortality can be found in his children.

What you leave in your children, is more important than what you leave to them

I don't buy art in order to leave a mark or to be remembered; clutching at immortality is of zero interest to anyone sane.

I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children. If I were a painter, I would have painted for them. If I were a musician, I would have composed music. But I am a lecturer. So I lectured.

With my art, it's the one thing that I know will outlive me and outlive my feelings. It will outlive my depressive seasons.

Death will destroy my body, but my creatures will keep on living ever after, in the years to come.

Five years off my life... I wondered with a wry smile, would people be immortal if they didn't have kids?