Francis Bacon citations
Francis Bacon
Date de naissance: 22. janvier 1561
Date de décès: 9. avril 1626
Autres noms: Sir Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, né le 22 janvier 1561 à Londres et mort à Highgate près de la même ville en 1626, baron de Verulam, vicomte de St Albans, Chancelier d’Angleterre, est un scientifique, un philosophe et un homme d'État anglais. Francis Bacon développe dans son œuvre le De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum une théorie empiriste de la connaissance, et, en 1620, il précise les règles de la méthode expérimentale dans le Novum organum, ce qui fait de lui l’un des pionniers de la pensée scientifique moderne.
Œuvres
Citations Francis Bacon
„Le médecin (…), pour guérir la maladie, tue le malade.“
Cure the disease, and kill the patient.
en
„La science de l'homme est la mesure de sa puissance, parce qu'ignorer la cause, c'est ne pouvoir produire l'effet. On ne triomphe de la nature qu’en lui obéissant; et ce qui, dans la spéculation, porte le nom de cause, devient une règle dans la pratique.“
— Francis Bacon, livre Novum Organum
Novum Organum (1620), traduction de 1857
„Les empiriques, semblables aux fourmis, ne savent qu’amasser et user; les rationalistes, semblables aux araignées, font des toiles qu’ils tirent d’eux même; le procédé de l’abeille tient le milieu entre ces deux : elle recueille ses matériaux sur les fleurs des jardins et des champs; mais elle les transforme et les distille par une vertu qui lui est propre : c’est l’image du véritable travail de la philosophie, qui ne se fie pas aux seules forces de l’esprit humain et n’y prend même pas son principal appui. (…) C’est pourquoi il y a tout à espérer d’une alliance intime et sacrée de ces deux facultés expérimentale et rationnelle; alliance qui ne s’est pas encore rencontrée.“
— Francis Bacon, livre Novum Organum
Novum Organum (1620), traduction de 1857
„The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul“
— Francis Bacon, livre The Advancement of Learning
The Advancement of Learning (1605)
Contexte: The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul; by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can be found in the nature of things. Therefore, because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical: because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns them more just in retribution, and more according to revealed providence: because true history representeth actions and events more ordinary, and less interchanged, therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness, and more unexpected and alternative variations: so as it appeareth that poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and to delectation. And therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind into the nature of things.
Book II, iv, 2
„A wise man will make more opportunities, than he finds.“
— Francis Bacon, livre Essays
Of Ceremonies and Respect
Essays (1625)
Source: The Essays
„Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.“
— Francis Bacon, livre Essays
Essays (1625)
Contexte: Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
Of Studies
„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.“
— Francis Bacon, livre The Advancement of Learning
Book I, v, 8
The Advancement of Learning (1605)
Source: The Advancement Of Learning
Contexte: The two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation: 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.
„Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.“
No. 36
Apophthegms (1624)
Variante: Money is a great servant but a bad master.
„There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.“
— Francis Bacon, livre Essays
Of Beauty
Essays (1625)
„Be angry, but sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Anger must be limited and confined, both in race and in time.“
— Francis Bacon, livre Essays
Of Anger
Essays (1625)
Contexte: To seek to extinguish anger utterly, is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: Be angry, but sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Anger must be limited and confined, both in race and in time.
„There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine.“
— Francis Bacon, livre Novum Organum
Aphorism 23
Novum Organum (1620), Book I
Contexte: There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine. That is to say, between certain empty dogmas, and the true signatures and marks set upon the works of creation as they are found in nature.
