Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban PC KCwas an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, and author. He served both as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England. After his death, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth21 January 1561
men two errors
Another error is an impatience of doubt and haste to assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment. For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients; the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation; if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
friendship heart want
Those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts.
sloth ornaments use
To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affection; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar.
evil body causes
Princes are like heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration, but no rest.
errors confusion experience
Truth comes out of error more readily than out of confusion.
mean self done
It would be unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.
art father wish
Picasso is the reason why I paint. He is the father figure, who gave me the wish to paint.
library shrines saint
Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.
believe men being-true
For what a man would like to be true, that he more readily believes.
christian religious law
There was never law, or sect, or opinion did so much magnify goodness, as the Christian religion doth.
christian book mind
The images of mens wits and knowledge remain in books. They generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages
men doubt wit
When a doubt is once received, men labour rather how to keep it a doubt still, than how to solve it; and accordingly bend their wits.
atheist real hypocrite
Great Hypocrites are the real atheists.
men serpent
Knowledge hath in it somewhat of the serpent, and therefore where it entereth into a man it makes him swell.