Francis Bacon (filozof) cytaty

strona 6

„Gdy człowiek na początku jest pewny, kończy na wątpliwości, a gdy zaczyna od wątpliwości, kończy na pewności.”

„Wiedza to potęga.”
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.

„Nie masz doskonałego piękna bez pewnej niezwykłości w umiarach.”

„Ten, kto nie jest z nami, jest przeciw nam. Kto nie jest przeciw nam, jest z nami.”

„Mała dawka filozofii czyni z człowieka ateistę, duża zwraca go ku religii.”

„Łatwiej się w kłótnię nie wdawać, niż się z niej później wycofać.”

„Kto mówi wszystko, co wie, wygada także to, czego nie wie.”

„Bądź wierny sobie, a nie będziesz niewierny innym.”

„Są tacy, którzy umieją tasować karty, ale nie umieją grać.”

„Mężczyzna jest już na wpół zakochany w każdej kobiecie, która słucha, gdy mówi.”

„Naturę można ukryć, czasem zwalczyć, rzadko stłumić.”

„Prawa są jak sieć pajęcza, w której więzną małe muchy, ale przez którą przebijają się wielkie.”

„Mężczyzna czuje się siedem lat starszy w dzień po ślubie.”

„Nie można przyrody zwyciężyć inaczej niż przez to, że się jej słucha.”

„Żona jest dla młodego mężczyzny kochanką, dla dojrzałego towarzyszką, dla starego pielęgniarką, więc w każdym wieku jest pretekst, żeby się ożenić.”

„Gdyby usunąć ze świata człowieka, świat stałby się zupełnym bezładem, bez żadnego sensu i celu, (…) nie zmierzającym ku niczemu.”

„Wątpliwości nie rujnują wiary, lecz ją umacniają.”

„To niemożliwe, by kochać i być rozsądnym.”

„Okazja czyni złodzieja.”

„Nie masz w państwie nic boleśniejszego ponad to, kiedy ludzie sprytni uchodzą za mądrych.”

„Przyjaźń podwaja radość, a o połowę zmniejsza przykrości.”

„Można wyleczyć chorobę, ale zabić pacjenta.”

„Prawdziwa wiedza – to znajomość przyczyn.”

„Lekarz leczy chorobę, a zabija pacjenta.”

„Lekarstwo bywa gorsze od choroby.”

„Milczenie jest cnotą głupich.”

„Kawaler jest przykrzejszy, złośliwszy, niż człowiek żonaty; mniej posiada uczuć podnoszących czułość i dotykających serca.”

„Rozum ludzki nie odznacza się trzeźwym spojrzeniem,
lecz podlega wpływowi woli i uczyć; tak powstają
nauki budowane wedle upodobań człowieka.
Albowiem człowiek łatwiej wierzy w to, co wolałby,
aby było prawdziwe. Stąd to pochodzi, że odrzuca:
rzeczy trudne, gdyż brak mu cierpliwości w prowadzeniu badań;
rzeczy trzeźwe, ponieważ ograniczają nadzieję;
[…]
poglądy przeciwne pospolitemu mniemaniu ze względu na opinie gminu.
Niezliczone są wreszcie, a niekiedy nieuchwytne sposoby,
którymi uczucia zabarwiają i zarażają rozum.”

„Ludzkie zrozumienie jest jak krzywe zwierciadło, które, otrzymując promienie nieregularnie, zniekształca i zmienia kolor natury rzeczy przez wmieszanie w niej swojej natury.”

„Mądry człowiek nie czeka na okazje, sam je stwarza.”

„Rozumowi więc ludzkiemu nie trzeba dodawać skrzydeł, lecz raczej ołowiu i ciężarów, ażeby hamowały wszelkie wyskoki.”

„Prawdę łatwiej wyłowić z błędów niż z zamętu.”

„Umysłowi ludzkiemu nie skrzydeł potrzeba, lecz ołowiu.”

“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."”

“But men must know that in this theater of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.”

“The planting of hemp and flax would be an unknown advantage to the kingdom, many places therein being as apt for it, as any foreing parts.”

“As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.”

“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 when the hill stood still he was never a whit abashed, but said, "If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill."”

“The Scripture saith, The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God; it is not said, The fool hath thought in his heart; so as he rather saith it, by rote to himself, as that he would have, than that he can thoroughly believe it, or be persuaded of it. For none deny, there is a God, but those, for whom it maketh that there were no God. It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man, than by this; that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it, within themselves, and would be glad to be strengthened, by the consent of others.”

“Therefore, as atheism is in all respects hateful, so in this, that it depriveth human nature of the means to exalt itself, above human frailty.”

“Only charity admitteth no excess. For so we see, aspiring to be like God in power, the angels transgressed and fell; Ascendam, et ero similis altissimo: by aspiring to be like God in knowledge, man transgressed and fell; Eritis sicut Dii, scientes bonum et malum: but by aspiring to a similitude of God in goodness or love, neither man nor angel ever transgressed, or shall transgress.”

“In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow the name of the world; as to say, "The world says," or "There is a speech abroad."”

“Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.”

“Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.”

“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.”

“We have also sound houses, where we practice and demonstrate all sounds and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter sounds and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have; together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent small sounds as great and deep; likewise divers trembling and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices of beasts and birds. We have certain helps which set to the ear to do further the hearing greatly. We have also divers strange and artificial echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and as if it were tossing it; and some that give back the voice louder than it came, some shriller and some deeper; yea, some rendering the voice, differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have also means to convey sounds in tubes and pipes, in strange lines and distances…”

“But by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this — that men despair and think things impossible.”

“Glorious men are the scorn of wise men, the admiration of fools, the idols of parasites, and the slaves of their own vaunts.”

“…it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives…”

“As for the passions and studies of the mind: avoid envy; anxious fears; anger fretting inwards; subtle and knotty inquisitions; joys and exhilarations in excess; sadness not communicated. Entertain hopes; mirth rather than joy; variety of delights, rather than surfeit of them; wonder and admiration, and therefore novelties; studies that fill the mind with splendid and illustrious objects, as histories, fables, and contemplations of nature.”

“The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men is the vicissitude of sects and religions.”

“Like strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones.”

“Aristotle… a mere bond-servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious and well nigh useless.”

“Time, which is the author of authors.”

“For a man to love again where he is loved, it is the charity of publicans contracted by mutual profit and good offices; but to love a man's enemies is one of the cunningest points of the law of Christ, and an imitation of the divine nature.”

“[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.”

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

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

“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.”

“[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.”

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

“States as great engines move slowly.”