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
A just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Defense
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
It was well said that envy keeps no holidays.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Envy
I am of opinion that, unless you could bray Christianity in a mortar, and mould it into a new paste, there is no possibility of a holy war.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: War
God’s first creature, which was light.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Creation
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; and who wanteth the one will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope to attain to another’s virtue, will seek to come at even hand by depressing another’s fortune.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Envy
The eye of the understanding is like the eye of the sense; for as you may see great objects through small crannies or holes, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Understanding
Libraries are as the shrines where all the relics of saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Libraries
We are much beholden to Machiavelli and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Philosophy, Philosophers
Vain-glorious men are the scorn of the wise, the admiration of fools, the idols of parasites, and the slaves of their own vaunts.
—Francis Bacon
Nature is a labyrinth in which the very haste you move with will make you lose your way.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Nature
Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Power, Authority
Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Money
It is a strange desire, to seek power and lose liberty, or to seek power over others and to lose power over a man’s self. The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains, and it is sometimes base; and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Power, Insults
The reverence of man’s self, is, nest to religion, the chiefest bridle of all vices.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Self-respect
The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Virtues, Beauty
Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Doubt, Philosophy
A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Questions
Many secrets of art and nature are thought by the unlearned to be magical.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Magic
The virtue of prosperity is temperance, but the virtue of adversity is fortitude; and the last is the more sublime attainment.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Difficulties, Prosperity, Adversity
In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Thought, Reason, Ideas
The first creation of God, in the works of the days, was the light of sense; the last was the light of reason; and his Sabbath work, ever since, is the illumination of the spirit.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Light
Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men…the master of superstition is the people; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reverse order
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Arguments, Government, Atheism
It cannot be denied that outward accents conduce much to fortune; favor, opportunity, death of others, occasion fitting virtue: but chiefly, the mold of a man’s fortune is in his own hands.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Confidence, Fortune
Images also help me find and realise ideas. I look at hundreds of very different, contrasting images and I pinch details from them, rather like people who eat from other people
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Imagination
The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Wealth, Fortune
Bashfulness is a great hindrance to a man, both in uttering his sentiments and in understanding what is proposed to him; it is therefore good to press forward with discretion, both in discourse and company of the better sort.
—Francis Bacon
By far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses.
—Francis Bacon
Seek first the virtues of the mind; and other things either will come, or will not be wanted.
—Francis Bacon
In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Adversity
He who cannot contract the sight of his mind, as well as dilate it, wants a great talent in life.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Mind
He that defers his charity until he is dead is, if a man weighs it rightly, rather liberal of another man’s goods than his own.
—Francis Bacon
Discretion in speech, is more than eloquence.
—Francis Bacon
Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.
—Francis Bacon
Great effects come of industry and perseverance; for audacity doth almost bind and mate the weaker sort of minds.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Perseverance
Cleanliness of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God.
—Francis Bacon
It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Politics
He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Time Management, Innovation, Change, Ideas, Problems
To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humour of a scholar
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Affectation
In thinking, if a person begins with certainties, they shall end in doubts, but if they can begin with doubts, they will end in certainties.
—Francis Bacon
Topics: Certainty, Doubt, Thoughts, Thought
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