Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was a great English natural philosopher, statesman, and pioneer of modern scientific thought. Bacon’s abundant writing spanned scientific methodology, religion, moral philosophy, and judicial administration.
Bacon started his political career at age 23 when he became a Member of Parliament. He opposed Queen Elizabeth I’s tax program, fell out of her favor, and encountered difficulty advancing his career. After James I acceded the throne in 1603, Bacon’s career flourished; he ultimately rose to become the Lord Chancellor, one of Britain’s highest political offices. However, his political career ended in disgrace in 1621 when the British Parliament incriminated him for accepting bribes and banished him from holding public office. King James I revoked Bacon’s sentence and allowed him to write in retirement.
Bacon’s real interests lay in science. He challenged the Aristotelian notion that scientific truth could be reached through an authoritative argument (wherein knowledgeable people discuss a subject long enough to ascertain the truth eventually.) In his early text, Cogitata et Visa (1607,) Bacon first proposed the idea of inductive reasoning. And in his best-known work, Novum Organum (1620,) Bacon not only advocated observable evidence and rational investigation but also promoted the dismissal of hypotheses founded on incomplete and insufficient proof. His philosophy, now known as the scientific method, has since been the basis of all experimental science.
Interestingly, Bacon’s scientific method ultimately took his life. When journeying in the snow-filled countryside one day, Bacon hit upon the idea of using snow to preserve meat. To test his hypothesis, Bacon purchased a fowl and stuffed it with snow. Later that day, he developed a cold that advanced into pneumonia and killed him.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Francis Bacon
If a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Mathematics
A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Anger, Revenge, Forgiveness
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
The sun, though it passes through dirty places, yet remains as pure as before.
—Francis Bacon
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. They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Imagination, Doubt, Uncertainty, Risk-taking, Discovery, Difficulty
Hope is the most beneficial of all the affections, and doth much to the prolongation of life, if it be not too often frustrated; but entertaineth the fancy with an expectation of good.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Hope
Knowledge, that tendeth but to satisfaction, is but as a courtesan, which is for pleasure, and not for fruit or generation.
—Francis Bacon
Knowledge is power. Rather, knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge—broad, deep knowledge—is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low. To know the thoughts and deeds that have marked man’s progress is to feel the great heartthrobs of humanity through the centuries; and if one does not feel in these pulsations a heavenward striving, one must indeed be deaf to the harmonies of life.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Knowledge, Power, Education
Opportunity makes a thief.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Opportunity, Progress
Croesus said to Cambyses; That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons.
—Francis Bacon
It is not possible to run a course aright when the goal itself has not been rightly placed.
—Francis Bacon
For knowledge, too, is itself power.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Knowledge
A wise man will make more opportunities, than he finds.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Self-reliance, Confidence, Opportunities, Wisdom, Opportunity, One liners, Success
Men in great place are thrice servants; servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so that they have no freedom, neither in their persons, in their actions, nor in their times.—It is a strange desire to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man’s self.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Servants, Service, Greatness, Power
Praise from the common people is generally false, and rather follows the vain than the virtuous.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Applause
Man ought to know that in the theater of human life, it is only for Gods and angels to be spectators.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Life
Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Youth
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.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Books, Reading
Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Wealth, Riches
If a man be gracious to strangers, it shows that he is a citizen of the world, and his heart is no island, cut off from other islands, but a continent that joins them.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Kindness
Science is the labor and handicraft of the mind.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Science
Seek first the virtues of the mind; and other things either will come, or will not be wanted.
—Francis Bacon
Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Questions
Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Reading
Ask counsel of both timesof the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.
—Francis Bacon
Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Adversity, Prosperity, Success & Failure
But this is that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation and action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than they have been … .
—Francis Bacon
There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Wisdom
Nothing is terrible except fear itself.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Fear
The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Friendship
It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Fear, Desire
Science is but an image of the truth.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Science
Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress.
—Francis Bacon
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Hope
The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Vision
Knowledge itself is power.
—Francis Bacon
Nay, number itself in armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for, as Virgil saith, It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.
—Francis Bacon
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Wisdom
Money makes a good servant, but a bad master.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Money
Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences; whence it is bad in council though good in execution.—The right use of the bold, therefore, is, that they never command in chief, but serve as seconds under the direction of others.—For in council it is good to see dangers, and in execution not to see them unless they be very great.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Bravery
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