Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626)
English philosopher, statesman and essayist.
Audacter calumniare, semper aliquid haeret.
Pyrrhus, when his friends congratulated to him his victory over the Romans under Fabricius, but with great slaughter of his own side, said to them, "Yes; but if we have such another victory, we are undone".
The greatness of an estate, in bulk and territory, doth fall under measure; and the greatness of finances and revenue, doth fall under computation. The population may appear by musters; and the number and greatness of cities and towns by cards and maps. But yet there is not any thing amongst civil affairs more subject to error, than the right valuation and true judgment concerning the power and forces of an estate.
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
Ne mireris, si vulgus verius loquatur quam honoratiores; quia etiam tutius loquitur.
As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.
Princes are like heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration but no rest.
Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.
I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends, as I have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province; and if I could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof the one with frivolous disputations, confutations, and verbosities, the other with blind experiments and auricular traditions and impostures, hath committed so many spoils, I hope I should bring in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inventions and discoveries; the best state of that province. This, whether it be curiosity, or vain glory, or nature, or (if one take it favourably) philanthropia, is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be removed. And I do easily see, that place of any reasonable countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than of a man's own; which is the thing I greatly affect.
Discretion of speech, is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him, with whom we deal, is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.
Virtue is like a rich stone — best plain set.
Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
It is not possible to run a course aright when the goal itself has not been rightly placed.
For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself.
The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this — that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.
Be true to thyself, as thou be not false to others.
Lastly, there are Idols which have immigrated into men's minds from the various dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call Idols of the Theater, because in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion.
The winning of honor, is but the revealing of a man's virtue and worth, without disadvantage.
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.