Francis Bacon Quotes page 4

“[N]ot only must we seek the measure of motions and actions by themselves, but much more in comparison; for this is of excellent use and very general application. Now we find that the flash of a gun is seen sooner than its report is heard… and this is owing it seems to the motion of light being more rapid than that of sound. We find to that visible images are received by the sight faster than they are dismissed; thus the strings of the violin, when struck by the finger, are to appearance doubled and tripled, because the new image is received before the old one is gone; which is also why the reason why rings being spun round look like globes, and a lighted torch, carried hastily at night, seems to have a tail. And it was upon this inequality of motions in point of velocity that Galileo built his theory of flux and reflux of the sea; supposing that the earth revolved faster than the water could follow; and that the water was therefore first gathered in a heap and then fell down, as we see in a basin of water moved quickly. But this he devised upon an assumption which cannot be allowed, viz. that the earth moves; and also without being well informed as to the sexhorary motion of the tide.”

Book I, iv, 12
The Advancement of Learning (1605)

“Cato said the best way to keep good acts in memory was to refresh them with new.”

Aphorism 46
Novum Organum (1620), Book II

“If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.”

No. 247
Apophthegms (1624)

“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.”

Of Fortune
Essays (1625)

“[I]n the system of Copernicus there are found many and great inconveniences; for both the loading of the earth with triple motion is very incommodious, and the separation of the sun from the company of the planets, with which it has so many passions in common, is likewise a difficulty, and the introduction of so much immobility into nature, by representing the sun and stars as immovable, especially being of all bodies the highest and most radiant, and making the moon revolve about the earth in an epicycle, and some other assumptions of his, are the speculations of one who cares not what fictions he introduces into nature, provided his calculations answer. But if it be granted that the earth moves, it would seem more natural to suppose that there is no system at all, but scattered globes… than to constitute a system of which the sun is the centre. And this the consent of ages and of antiquity has rather embraced and approved. For the opinion concerning the motion of the earth is not new, but revived from the ancients… whereas the opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable is altogether new… and was first introduced by Copernicus. …But if the earth moves, the stars may either be stationary, as Copernicus thought or, as it is far more probable, and has been suggested by Gilbert, they may revolve each round its own centre in its own place, without any motion of its centre, as the earth itself does… But either way, there is no reason why there should not be stars above stars til they go beyond our sight.”

Aphorism 9
Novum Organum (1620), Book I

“Nuptial love maketh mankind, friendly love perfecteth it, but wonton love corrupteth and embaseth it.”

Descriptio Globi Intellectualis (1653, written ca. 1612) Ch. 6, as quoted in "Description of the Intellectual Globe," The Works of Francis Bacon (1889) pp. 517-518, https://books.google.com/books?id=lsILAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA517 Vol. 4, ed. James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, Douglas Denon Heath.

“States as great engines move slowly.”

Of Love
Essays (1625)

“Touching the secrets of the heart and the successions of time, doth make a just and sound difference between the manner of the exposition of the Scriptures and all other books. For it is an excellent observation which hath been made upon the answers of our Saviour Christ to many of the questions which were propounded to Him, how that they are impertinent to the state of the question demanded: the reason whereof is, because not being like man, which knows man’s thoughts by his words, but knowing man’s thoughts immediately, He never answered their words, but their thoughts. Much in the like manner it is with the Scriptures, which being written to the thoughts of men, and to the succession of all ages, with a foresight of all heresies, contradictions, differing estates of the Church, yea, and particularly of the elect, are not to be interpreted only according to the latitude of the proper sense of the place, and respectively towards that present occasion whereupon the words were uttered, or in precise congruity or contexture with the words before or after, or in contemplation of the principal scope of the place; but have in themselves, not only totally or collectively, but distributively in clauses and words, infinite springs and streams of doctrine to water the Church in every part. And therefore as the literal sense is, as it were, the main stream or river, so the moral sense chiefly, and sometimes the allegorical or typical, are they whereof the Church hath most use; not that I wish men to be bold in allegories, or indulgent or light in allusions: but that I do much condemn that interpretation of the Scripture which is only after the manner as men use to interpret a profane book.”

Book II
The Advancement of Learning (1605)

“I bequeath my soul to God… My body to be buried obscurely. For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next age.”

XXV. (17)
The Advancement of Learning (1605)

“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.”

His will (1626)

“You shall have atheists strive to get disciples, as it fareth with other sects. And, which is most of all, you shall have of them, that will suffer for atheism, and not recant; whereas if they did truly think, that there were no such thing as God, why should they trouble themselves?”

Aphorism 44
Novum Organum (1620), Book I

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.”

Of Atheism
Essays (1625)

“Boldness is ever blind; for it seeth not dangers and inconveniences.”

Of Gardens
Essays (1625)

“The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded.”

Of Boldness
Essays (1625)

“"You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God" This canon is the mother of all canons against heresy; the causes of error are two; the ignorance of the will of God, and the ignorance or not sufficient consideration of his power.”

Aphorism 47
Novum Organum (1620), Book I

“Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.”

Of Heresies
Meditationes sacræ (1597)

“Seeming wise men may make shift to get opinion; but let no man choose them for employment; for certainly you were better take for business, a man somewhat absurd, than over-formal.”

Of Marriage and Single Life
Essays (1625)

“But the best demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual experiment.”

Of Seeming Wise
Essays (1625)

“Cleanness of body was ever deemed to proceed from a due reverence to God.”

Aphorism 70
Novum Organum (1620), Book I

“Come home to men's business and bosoms.”

Book II
The Advancement of Learning (1605)

“He that defers his charity 'till he is dead, is (if a man weighs it rightly) rather liberal of another man's, than of his own.”

Dedication to the Essays (edition 1625)
Essays (1625)

Ornamenta Rationalia http://books.google.com/books?id=VHNUAAAAYAAJ&q="He+that+defers+his+charity+'till+he+is+dead+is+if+a+man+weighs+it"+"rather+liberal+of+another+man's+than+of+his+own"&pg=PA298#v=onepage #55

“Do not wonder, if the common people speak more truly than those of high rank; for they speak with more safety.”
Ne mireris, si vulgus verius loquatur quam honoratiores; quia etiam tutius loquitur.

“Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.”

Exempla Antithetorum, IX. Laus, Existimatio (Pro.) http://books.google.com/books?id=C9cQAAAAYAAJ&q=&quot;Ne+mireris+si+vulgus+verius+loquatur+quam+honoratiores+quia+etiam+tutius+loquitur&quot;&pg=PA692#v=onepage

Proposition touching Amendment of Laws
Resuscitatio (1657)

“Hurl your calumnies boldly; something is sure to stick.”
Audacter calumniare, semper aliquid haeret.

“And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air.”

De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623)

“Knowledge, that tendeth but to satisfaction, is but as a courtesan, which is for pleasure, and not for fruit or generation.”

Of Gardens
Essays (1625)

“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public.”

Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature (ca. 1603) Works, Vol. 1, p. 83; The Works of Francis Bacon (1819) p. 133, https://books.google.com/books?id=xgE9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA133 Vol. 2

“For I find that even those that have sought knowledge for itself and not for benefit, or ostentation, or any practical enablement in the course of their life, have nevertheless propounded to themselves a wrong mark, namely, satisfaction, which men call truth, and not operation. For as in the courts and services of princes and states, it is a much easier matter to give satisfaction than to do the business; so in the inquiring of causes and reasons it is much easier to find out such causes as will satisfy the mind of man, and quiet objections, than such causes as will direct him and give him light to new experiences and inventions.”

Of Marriage and Single Life
Essays (1625)

“Virtue is like precious odors — most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.”

Source: Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature (ca. 1603) Works, Vol. 1; The Works of Francis Bacon (1857) p. 232, https://books.google.com/books?id=HloJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA232 Vol. 3.

“This misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at least a great improficience in the sciences themselves. For the handling of final causes, mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and physical causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon these satisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and prejudice of further discovery. For this I find done not only by Plato, who ever anchoreth upon that shore, but by Aristotle, Galen, and others which do usually likewise fall upon these flats of discoursing causes.”

Of Adversity
Essays (1625)

“It is yet a higher speech of his than the other, “It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.””

Book VII, 7
The Advancement of Learning (1605)

“For there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself, as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, That it is impossible to love, and to be wise.”

Of Adversity
Essays (1625)