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
learning years age
Learning hath his infancy, when it is but beginning and almost childish; then his youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile; then his strength of years, when it is solid and reduced; and lastly his old age, when it waxeth dry and exhaust.
truth errors giving
The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search for truth. So it does more harm than good.
leaving slime looks
I would like my pictures to look as if a human being had passed between them, like a snail leaving its trail of the human presence... as a snail leaves its slime.
mind satisfaction students
Let every student of nature take this as his rule, that whatever the mind seizes upon with particular satisfaction is to be held in suspicion.
happiness beauty art
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
home house looks
Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.
delight ornaments study
Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability.
wise peace hurt
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
life nature travel
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
variety-is-the-spice-of-life pleasant variety
Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.
life fall angel
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall: but in charity there is no excess; neither can angel nor man come in danger by it.
art attitude people
Great art is always a way of concentrating, reinventing what is called fact, what we know of our existence- a reconcentration… tearing away the veils, the attitudes people acquire of their time and earlier time. Really good artists tear down those veils
knowledge causes contemplation
Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.
science power wit
The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.