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
change science omnipotence
Nevertheless if any skillful Servant of Nature shall bring force to bear on matter, and shall vex it and drive it to extremities as if with the purpose of reducing it to nothing, then will matter (since annihilation or true destruction is not possible except by the omnipotence of God) finding itself in these straits, turn and transform itself into strange shapes, passing from one change to another till it has gone through the whole circle and finished the period.
men principles magistrates
Custom is the principle magistrate of man's life.
want painting accuracy
You want accuracy, but not representation. If you know how to make the figuration, it doesn't work. Anything you can make, you make by accident. In painting, you have to know what you do, not how, when you do it.
want chance accidents
I want a very ordered image, but I want it to come about by chance.
opportunity men hands
It cannot be denied that outward accidents conduce much to fortune, favor, opportunity, death of others, occasion fitting virtue; but chiefly, the mold of a man's fortune is in his own hands
horrific
You can't be more horrific than life itself,
passion artist despair
An artist must learn to be nourished by his passions and by his despairs,
knowledge accomplishment age
I work for posterity, these things requiring ages for their accomplishment.
knowledge mean divorce
By this means we presume we have established for ever, a true and legitimate marriage between the Empirical and Rational faculty; whose fastidious and unfortunate divorce and separation hath troubled and disordered the whole race and generation of mankind.
knowledge mind matter
He that cometh to seek after knowledge, with a mind to scorn, shall be sure to find matter for his humour, but no matter for his instruction.
witty men thinking
Lukewarm persons think they may accommodate points of religion by middle ways and witty reconcilements,--as if they would make an arbitrament between God and man.
art men self
All authority must be out of a man's self, turned . . . either upon an art, or upon a man.
book men renovation
But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation.
party men cunning-man
It is a good point of cunning for a man to shape the answer he would have in his own words and propositions, for it makes the other party stick the less.