“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.”

— Francis Bacon , book The Advancement of Learning

Book II, vii, 5
The Advancement of Learning (1605)

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Francis Bacon 295

English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and auth… 1561–1626

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“There is nothing you can see that is not a flower;
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見るところ花にあらずと云ふことなし、
思ふところ月にあらずと云ふことなし。
Miru tokoro hana ni arazu to iu koto nashi,
omou tokoro tsuki ni arazu to iu koto nashi
Classical Japanese Database, Translation #172 http://carlsensei.com/classical/index.php/translation/view/172 (Translation: Reginald Horace Blyth)
Statements
Variant: There is nothing you can see that is not a flower;
There is nothing you can think that is not the moon.

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Azfar Hussain translations

“One might have thought of sight, but who could think
Of what it sees, for all the ill it sees?”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Esthétique du Mal (1944)
Context: One might have thought of sight, but who could think
Of what it sees, for all the ill it sees?
Speech found the ear, for all the evil sound,
But the dark italics it could not propound.
And out of what sees and hears and out
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