These Francis Bacon quotes about books, friendship, love and more will inspire you. Here you will find the best quotes about Francis Bacon’s science. The following collection of Francis Bacon’s most famous quotes has been extracted from his famous writings, documents, speeches and thoughts. Check out these great quotes and we are sure you will love them. Bacon’s original text is written in Latin, so any quotation in English is an interpretation of the translator.
Short Biography of Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon was an English writer, philosopher, statesman, orator, pioneer of science and lawyer who lived between 1561 and 1626. Sir Francis Bacon was an English philosopher who also served as Attorney General of England. His work is related to the development of the scientific method and remained influential during the scientific revolution.
He was first awarded the title of Lord Chancellor, then Baron Verulam, and then became Viscount of St Albans in 1621. His official title of Viscount of St Albans was revoked upon his death as he had no heir. However, he continued to be the king’s favorite and became the interim regent of England in 1607. And yet he was considered one of the sages who answered the question of when a man should marry: a young man is not yet, an old man for nothing.
He is now known as the father of the scientific method, credited with using inductive reasoning instead of deductive reasoning to derive general facts and knowledge. His philosophy, now known as the scientific method, has since underpinned all experimental science. Bacon’s scientific method, also known as the father of empiricism, is still in use today. He suggested that in solving a problem, experiments should be carried out, based on which the data was analyzed and then found results, rather than just arguing with questions based on logic.
Bacon attempted to become attorney general in 1594; however, this position was assigned to Sir Edward Cook. Sir Edward also marries a wealthy widow who was courted by Bacon. Despite these setbacks, he became the first delegate to the Royal Council in 1957. When King James I ascended the throne, Bacon’s popularity among the royal family increased, leading to a knighthood in 1603.
“Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.”
“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake…”
“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.”
“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
“Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.”
“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.”
“The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.”
“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.”
“Money is a great servant but a bad master.”
“I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.”
“Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.”
“If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.”
“The worst men often give the best advice.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.”
“Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.”
“It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man’s self.”
“God’s first creature, which was light.”
“Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability.”
“There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.”
Famous Quotes from Francis Bacon
“Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.”
“It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.”
“By far the best proof is experience.”
“Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.”
“Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.”
“Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.”
“Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.”
“The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.”
“If a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.”
“Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.”
“Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”
“A bachelor’s life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.”
“In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.”
“Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.”
“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.”
“A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.”
“A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.”
“It is impossible to love and to be wise.”
Inspiring quotes from Francis Bacon
“The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, in Apollo, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man’s body and reduce it to harmony.”
“Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.”
“Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.”
“Art is man added to Nature.”
“He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.”
“Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.”
“Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.”
“Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.”
“Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse.”
“There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.”
“If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.”
“Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.”
“Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.”
“Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.”
“Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.”
“It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself.”
“Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.”
“We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.”
“God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.”
“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.”
“Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.”
“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”
“The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.”
“Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.”
“Science is but an image of the truth.”
“But men must know, that in this theatre of man’s life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.”
“The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.”
“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”
“Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.”
“Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.”
“A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.”
Francis Bacon Quotes about life
“For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.”
“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”
“Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.”
“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.”
“If a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again.”
“Silence is the virtue of fools.”
“Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.”
“Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted… but to weigh and consider.”
“Acorns were good until bread was found.”
“Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.”
“For my name and memory, I leave to men’s charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.”
“I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.”
“It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.”
“the serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself.”
“It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.”
“Many a man’s strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.”
“For no man can forbid the spark nor tell whence it may come.”