Revenge is a kind of wild justice.

The words open “Of Revenge”, the fourth of Bacon’s Essays in their final order. Revenge is a justice of a wild kind, Bacon continues, “which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out”: the first wrong only offends the law, but the revenge of it “putteth the law out of office”. A man who takes revenge is merely even with his enemy; in passing it over, he is superior, “for it is a prince’s part to pardon”. Later in the essay Bacon warns that a man who studies revenge “keeps his own wounds green”.

Bacon wrote the essay for the enlarged edition of 1625. A lawyer, a judge and for a few years Lord Chancellor, he treats revenge as a problem of public order before it is a problem of the soul.

The opening phrase is quoted today whenever vengeance is discussed, often with approval by those who forget that Bacon goes on to argue against it.

Essays, “Of Revenge”, opening words, 1625

Checked word for word in the work itself.

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