Francis Bacon quotes - page 16

Therefore from a closer and purer league between these two faculties, the experimental and the rational (such as has never yet been made), much may be hoped. (Francis Bacon)
The beginning is from God: for the business which is in hand, having the character of good so strongly impressed upon it, appears manifestly to proceed from God, who is the author of good, and the Father of Lights. View quote
Francis Bacon
Those who have taken upon them to lay down the law of nature as a thing already searched out and understood, whether they have spoken in simple assurance or professional affectation, have therein done philosophy and the sciences great injury. View quote
Francis Bacon
There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine. View quote
Francis Bacon
No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common notions, and to apply the understanding, thus made fair and even, to a fresh examination of particulars. View quote
Francis Bacon
If you would work any man, you must either know his nature and fashions, and so lead him; or his ends, and so persuade him or his weakness and disadvantages, and so awe him or those that have interest in him, and so govern him. In dealing with cunning persons, we must ever consider their ends, to interpret their speeches; and it is good to say little to them, and that which they least look for. View quote
Francis Bacon
A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others. For men's minds, will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil. View quote
Francis Bacon
The virtue of prosperity, is temperance; the virtue of adversity, is fortitude; which in morals is the more heroical virtue. View quote
Francis Bacon
Another argument of hope may be drawn from this - that some of the inventions already known are such as before they were discovered it could hardly have entered any man's head to think of; they would have been simply set aside as impossible. View quote
Francis Bacon
I could not be true and constant to the argument I handle, if I were not willing to go beyond others; but yet not more willing than to have others go beyond me again. View quote
Francis Bacon
The Idols of Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things. (Francis Bacon)
Those who have handled sciences have been either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes a middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. View quote
Francis Bacon
The Idols of the Cave are the idols of the individual man. For everyone (besides the errors common to human nature in general) has a cave or den of his own, which refracts and discolors the light of nature, owing either to his own proper and peculiar nature; or to his education and conversation with others. View quote
Francis Bacon
It is a good shrewd proverb of the Spaniard, Tell a lie and find a truth. View quote
Francis Bacon
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. View quote
Francis Bacon
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. View quote
Francis Bacon
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion. View quote
Francis Bacon
I open and lay out a new and certain path for the mind to proceed in, starting directly from the simple sensuous perception. View quote
Francis Bacon
It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion, as is unworthy of him. For the one is unbelief, the other is contumely. View quote
Francis Bacon
But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies. View quote
Francis Bacon
But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses. (Francis Bacon)
There are also Idols formed by the intercourse and association of men with each other, which I call Idols of the Market Place, on account of the commerce and consort of men there. View quote
Francis Bacon
There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. View quote
Francis Bacon
The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried. View quote
Francis Bacon
The age of antiquity is the youth of the world. View quote
Francis Bacon