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
moving science dragons
The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds. And though there be many things in nature which are singular and unmatched, yet it devises for them parallels and conjugates and relatives which do not exist. Hence the fiction that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles, spirals and dragons being (except in name) utterly rejected.
power too-much authority
Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.
science matter body
There is nothing more certain in nature than that it is impossible for any body to be utterly annihilated.
science light giving
...those experiments be not only esteemed which have an immediate and present use, but those principally which are of most universal consequence for invention of other experiments, and those which give more light to the invention of causes; for the invention of the mariner's needle, which giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for navigation than the invention of the sails, which give the motion.
science mind handicrafts
[Science is] the labor and handicraft of the mind.
science understanding enquiry
The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond... But he is no less an unskilled and shallow philosopher who seeks causes of that which is most general, than he who in things subordinate and subaltern omits to do so
truth pleasure standing
No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
strength believe men
Men seem neither to understand their riches nor their strength. Of the former they believe greater things than they should; of the latter, less.
truth answers said
What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.
strong science doctors
Doctor Johnson said, that in sickness there were three things that were material; the physician, the disease, and the patient: and if any two of these joined, then they get the victory; for, Ne Hercules quidem contra duos [Not even Hercules himself is a match for two]. If the physician and the patient join, then down goes the disease; for then the patient recovers: if the physician and the disease join, that is a strong disease; and the physician mistaking the cure, then down goes the patient: if the patient and the disease join, then down goes the physician; for he is discredited.
change matter certain
That things are changed, and that nothing really perishes, and that the sum of matter remains exactly the same, is sufficiently certain.
confidence responsibility men
Chiefly the mold of a man's fortune is in his own hands.
eye understanding vision
The eye of understanding is like the eye of the sense; for as you may see great objects through small crannies or levels, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances.
science discovery new-work
It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active.