Francis Bacon
Father of the scientific method
Most quoted
"Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled: Mahomet called the hill to come to him again and again; and at the last took occasion to chide their weakness and slavish disposition."
— from Essays, 1625
"For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; but it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not regulated and corrected by the rules of true philosophy."
— from The Advancement of Learning, 1605
"The true method of experience first lights the candle, and then by means of the candle shows the way; commencing as it does with experience duly ordered and digested, not bungling or erratic, and from it eliciting axioms, and from established axioms again new experiments."
— from Novum Organum, 1620
All quotes by Francis Bacon (233)
Knowledge is power.
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
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.
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
The greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel.
Truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights.
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.
For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not regulated and applied.
The greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge.
Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
The inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favour.
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty.
The best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship is to cast it into duties, which the best friends perform one to another.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
Contemporaries of Francis Bacon
Other Philosophys born within 50 years of Francis Bacon (1561–1626).