Bacon Quotes
Prepared by: Dmitry Sirotkin
I present to you a selection of quotes from the English philosopher and politician Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626).
He was a proponent of the evidence-based scientific approach and the founder of empiricism .
Quotes are organized by topic: human manifestations, science, people, wealth, virtues, changes, religion, books, courage, happiness, nature, marriage, truth, friendship, reason, envy, behavior, death, life, knowledge, philosophy, revenge, glory, pleasure, flattery, laws, power, evil, beauty, error, doubt, manners, love, justice, anger, education, speech, selfishness, time, language, superstition, state, travel, reading, etc. Quotes are given about Bacon.
About human manifestations
Asking for advice is the greatest trust one person can place in another.
Prosperity best reveals a person's vices, while adversity reveals his virtues.
No passion bewitches a person like love or envy.
There is nothing sweeter than seeing clearly the mistakes of others.
Chaste people are often proud and arrogant; they abuse this dignity too much - their chastity.
Contemplation is decent idleness.
Stealth is the refuge of the weak.
Ambition is like bile, which promotes liveliness, agility and zeal in people in business, if you do not block its exit. Otherwise, it burns out, turning into a destructive poison.
There is nothing worse than fear itself.
The accusation of ingratitude is nothing more than an accusation of discernment regarding the reason for the good deed.
People who have a lot of shortcomings first of all notice them in others.
He who blurts out what he knows will also talk about what he doesn’t know.
To the same extent that people should be afraid of the evil tongue of a wit, a wit should be afraid of people's memory.
Rudeness breeds hatred.
When dealing with constantly cunning people, you must always not lose sight of their goals. With such people it is better to say little and say what they least expect.
About science
Science is nothing more than a reflection of reality.
Science not only, like a lark, rises to heights and enjoys its song, but like a bird of prey, it also knows how to descend and seize its prey.
We must not invent, not invent, but look for what nature creates and brings.
The ignorant despise science, the uneducated admire it, while the wise use it.
The true and legitimate goal of all sciences is to endow human life with new inventions and riches.
If science in itself did not bring any practical benefit, then even then it would not be possible to call it useless, as long as it refines the mind and brings order to it.
The true cause and root of all evil in the sciences lies in one thing: that we are deceptively amazed at the powers of the human mind, elevate them and do not seek true help for them. No matter how many forms of government there are, there has always been and will be only one in the sciences - a form of freedom.
Science also has an infancy, when it is still babbling; then youth, when it is blooming and lush; then maturity, when she becomes serious and taciturn; and finally, old age, when it becomes decrepit.
By the way, quotes about science
About people
Man is the servant and interpreter of nature.
In every person, nature grows either as grains or as weeds; let him water the first in a timely manner and destroy the second.
There is a secret inclination and desire in human nature to love others.
It is not enough for a person to know himself, he must also find a way by which he can intelligently show, manifest himself and ultimately change and shape himself.
It seems to us that people have little knowledge of both their capabilities and their strengths: they exaggerate the former, and underestimate the latter.
The human soul, since it despairs of finding the truth, becomes less active.
Man really is like a monkey: the higher he climbs, the more he shows off his ass.
Prosperity reveals our vices, and adversity reveals our virtues.
The crowd likes only what works on the imagination or what does not take the mind out of the circle of ordinary concepts.
Acquiring is a skill, maintaining is an art.
Reading makes a person knowledgeable, conversation makes a person resourceful, and the habit of writing makes a person accurate.
In difficult times, business people are more useful than virtuous people.
By the way, quotes about people
About wealth
Wealth is a good servant, but a bad mistress.
Wealth is very good when it serves us, and very bad when it rules us.
Wealth cannot be a worthy goal of human existence.
Wealth exists to be spent, and spending exists to do good and thereby gain honor.
Many, thinking that they could buy everything with their wealth, sold themselves first of all.
Wealth is for virtue what baggage trains are for an army: you cannot do without it, you cannot also abandon it, but it makes movement difficult, and taking care of it sometimes costs victory.
If some people despise wealth, it is because they have lost hope of getting rich. It was envy, excited by wealth, that elevated virtue to the rank of goddess.
The miser does not own his wealth; rather, it can be said that his wealth owns him.
Those who seek only certain profits are unlikely to become very rich; and whoever invests all his property in risky enterprises often goes bankrupt and falls into poverty; Therefore, it is necessary to combine the risk with a known security in case of losses.
About virtue
Virtue is nothing more than inner beauty, and beauty is nothing more than outer virtue.
The highest virtue should be considered: in prosperity - moderation, in adversity - steadfastness, the most heroic of the virtues.
By doing unworthy things, we become worthy people.
Praise is the reflected rays of virtue.
The paint of shame is the livery of virtue.
Of all the virtues and virtues of the soul, the greatest virtue is kindness.
The highest virtue is inaccessible to the understanding of the crowd; the latter readily praises the virtues of the lower order; middle virtues arouse in her surprise, or rather amazement; As for the highest virtues, she doesn’t even have a clue about them.
Virtue through wealth becomes a common good.
About the changes
Innovations are like newborns: at first they are unusually ugly.
For one of the secrets of nature and politics is that it is safer to change many things than one.
It would be crazy and self-contradictory to expect that something will be done that has never been done before, except by means that have never been tried before.
It is not easy to find a way to explain and convey what we offer. For what is new in itself will only be understood by analogy with the old.
It is vain to expect a great increase in knowledge from the introduction and grafting of the new onto the old. There must be a renewal to the last fundamentals if we do not want to forever revolve in a circle with the most insignificant movement forward.
Introduce improvements without boasting or vilifying your predecessors, but make it a rule not only to follow worthy examples, but also to create them yourself.
About religion
Humanity would be miserable without the divinity that lives within us.
After all, no one denies that God exists, except for those who would benefit if God did not exist.
Superficial philosophy inclines a person's mind to godlessness, but the depths of philosophy turn people's minds to religion.
Atheism is a thin layer of ice on which one person can walk, but an entire nation will fall into the abyss.
The Old Testament considers prosperity to be a good thing. The New Testament is adversity.
Excessive lust for power led to the fall of the angels; excessive thirst for knowledge leads to the fall of man; but mercy cannot be excessive and will not harm either angel or man.
By the way, quotes about religion
About books
Books are ships of thought, traveling the waves of time and carefully carrying their precious cargo from generation to generation.
The best advisors are dead.
Books should be the result of science, not science the result of books.
You learn everything from books except how to use them.
A good book relates to its rivals as the serpent of Moses relates to the rods of Egypt it has swallowed up.
There are books that need only to be tasted, there are those that are best swallowed, and only a few are worth chewing and digesting; in other words, some books should be read only partially, others without much diligence, and only a few - completely and carefully.
Libraries are repositories where the remains of great saints are kept.
By the way, quotes about books
About courage
Courage is the child of ignorance and meanness.
Courage is a kind of atrophy of feelings combined with evil will.
Real courage rarely comes without stupidity.
Heroism is an artificial concept, because courage is relative.
All virtues free us from the domination of vices; only courage frees us from the domination of fate.
Courage indeed ranks lower than actual talents, but it captivates, subjugates, enchants, so to speak, the narrow-minded and weak people who make up the majority; sometimes it subdues even prudent people in moments of weakness and indecision.
Oh happiness
To enjoy happiness is the greatest good; to be able to give it to others is even greater.
Happiness sells to impatient people a great many things that it gives freely to the patient.
Happiness is like a market where, if you wait a little, the price will drop more than once. Or sometimes it resembles the offer of the Sibyl, who first offers the whole product, then destroys it part by part, but leaves the price the same.
The most common external cause of one person’s happiness is the stupidity of another, for there is no other way to suddenly succeed than by taking advantage of the mistakes of other people.
By the way, quotes about happiness
About nature
Nature is conquered only by submission to it.
What is based on nature grows and multiplies, but what is based on opinion changes but does not grow.
Nature in man is often hidden, sometimes suppressed, but rarely destroyed.
In action, a person can do nothing else but connect and separate the bodies of nature. Nature does the rest within itself.
Everything in nature proves the existence of the following two laws: nothing is made from nothing and nothing is destroyed; but the actual so-called quantity or total sum of the particles of matter remains unchanged, neither increasing nor decreasing.
By the way, quotes about nature
About marriage
Marriage is a smart thing for a fool and a stupid thing for a smart one.
A man feels seven years older the day after his wedding.
He who has a wife and children is a hostage to fate.
Wife and children teach humanity; bachelors are gloomy and stern.
For young people, wives are mistresses; for middle-aged people - a life partner, for the elderly - a nurse.
There is no doubt that the best initiatives that brought the greatest benefit to society came from unmarried and childless people...
By the way, quotes about weddings
About truth
Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
The bad traveler is the one who, having set out on the open sea, believes that there is no land anywhere.
To be able to easily move from a joke to a serious one and from a serious to a joke requires more talent than is usually thought. Often a joke serves as a vehicle for truth that would not have reached its goal without its help.
The price of truth, no matter how dear it may be, can only be compared with the price of a pearl illuminated by daylight, and not with the price of a diamond or a carbuncle, which plays more powerfully by candlelight.
About friendship
Friendship doubles joys and cuts sorrows in half.
Friends are thieves of time.
The main fruit of friendship is relief and liberation from the overwhelm of the anguish that causes and causes all kinds of passions.
What, in essence, is wrong with the fact that my friend loves himself more than me?
True friendship is extremely rare in this world, especially between equals; and yet she was glorified most of all. If such high friendship exists, it is only between the highest and the lowest, because the well-being of one depends on the other.
By the way, quotes about friendship
About the mind
The human mind is like a mirror with an uneven surface, which, mixing its properties with the properties of things, reflects the latter in a distorted and perverted form.
The human mind is greedy. He can neither stop nor remain at peace, but rushes further and further.
General agreement is the worst omen in matters of reason.
Thoughts, like people, have their youth.
A smart person takes advantage of more opportunities than he can find.
One man's stupidity is another man's luck.
By the way, quotes about the mind
About envy
Envy never knows a holiday.
Those who, out of whim and vanity, want to succeed in everything at once are invariably envious. They will always have someone to envy, for it is impossible for many not to be superior to them in at least some way.
He who knows only his own affairs finds little food for envy.
A curious and annoying person is usually also envious; for it is unlikely that he delves into other people's affairs because it concerns himself; no, he marvels at other people's happiness.
About behavior
A person's behavior should be like his clothing: not too restrictive and not too elegant, but provide freedom of movement and action.
Our behavior is akin to a contagious disease: good people adopt bad habits, just as healthy people become infected from sick people.
Rules of conduct are the translation of virtue into common language.
Virtue and wisdom without knowledge of the rules of conduct are like foreign languages, because they are then usually not understood.
About death
I have thought a lot about death and find that it is the lesser of evils.
People are afraid of death for the same reason that children are afraid of the dark, because they don't know what it's all about.
Nothing but death can reconcile envy with virtue.
He who has no children sacrifices death.
Notice... how little the approach of death affects the strong in spirit, for each of them remains himself to the end.
About life
The world is a soap bubble, and human life is less than an inch.
Existence itself without moral existence is a curse. And the more significant this existence, the more significant this curse.
People should know: in the theater of life, only God and the angels are allowed to be spectators.
In life it’s like on the road: the shortest road is usually the dirtiest, and the long one is not much cleaner.
Only in the darkness of life does the luminary of friendship shine brightly; the brilliance of happiness darkens its light.
By the way, quotes about life
About knowledge
Knowledge itself is power.
Knowledge and power are one and the same.
We can do as much as we know.
The imaginary wealth of knowledge is the main reason for its poverty.
One should strive for knowledge not for the sake of controversy, not for the sake of contempt for others, not for the sake of profit, fame, power or other goals, but in order to be useful in life.
About philosophy
Our entire moral philosophy is nothing more than a handmaiden of religion.
The thoughts of philosophers are like stars; they do not give light because they are too sublime.
If pride rises from contempt for others to contempt for itself, it becomes philosophy.
In all ages natural philosophy has met with a tiresome and painful enemy, namely, superstition and blind, immoderate religious zeal.
About revenge
Anyone who plots revenge poisons his wounds, which otherwise would have been healed and healed long ago. Truly, by taking revenge, a person becomes equal to his enemy, and by forgiving the enemy, he surpasses him.
In all attempts to restrain anger, the best remedy is to gain time: force yourself to believe that the time for revenge has not yet come, but will certainly come: in the meantime, calm yourself down and reserve the right to take revenge.
About fame
The less merit, the louder the praise.
The immortality of animals is in their offspring, while that of humans is in glory, merit and deeds.
Fame is more the result of the desire to show off oneself than of true merit, of some richness rather than of real greatness.
A fame-loving person serves as a toy for the smart, an idol for fools, prey for parasites and a slave for his own vanity.
About pleasure
Only that pleasure is natural which does not know satiety.
The less true a story is, the more enjoyable it is.
Danger demands that it be paid in pleasure.
While philosophers argue about what is most important—virtue or pleasure—look for the means to possess both.
About flattery
Flattery is a product of a person's character rather than of evil will.
Flattery is clothed in truly comic ugliness, but produces a tragic effect.
Flattery is the style of slaves.
Flattery is a kind of pipe used to lure birds by imitating their voice.
Most of all, we flatter ourselves.
About laws
Laws are like a web: small insects get entangled in it, but large ones never do.
The judge's job is to interpret the law, not to grant it.
One unjust sentence entails greater disasters than many crimes committed by private people; the latter spoil only streams, only solitary streams of water, while an unjust judge spoils the source itself.
About power
Such a strange desire to gain power and give up freedom.
A person, by ruling over others, loses his own freedom.
Pity is the one who has few desires and many fears, but such is the fate of monarchs.
Higher ranks make it possible to do things that it would be nice not to be able to do.
About evil
There is no one who does evil for its own sake, but everyone does it for profit, or pleasure, or honor, or the like.
As long as ignorance lasts, man finds no means against evil.
An honest and decent person will never be able to correct and re-educate dishonest and bad people if he himself does not first explore all the hidden places and depths of evil.
By the way, quotes about evil
About beauty
Beauty is like a precious stone: the simpler it is, the more precious it is.
Beauty makes virtues sparkle and vices blush.
There is no perfect beauty without some unusualness in proportions. (True beauty always has a flaw.)
A beautiful face is a silent recommendation.
By the way, quotes about beauty
About delusion
There is nothing more disastrous than the apotheosis of our delusions, this reverent attitude towards ghostly chimeras.
To take away from people empty prejudices, false opinions, seductive ghosts and all the chimerical hopes that nourish them, would perhaps mean leaving them to boredom, disgust, melancholy and despair.
About doubt
How unhappy is he who doubts! His mind throws him in different directions, as if during a pitching and lateral motion... And there is only one remedy against this: to oppose reality to the onslaught of imagination.
He who begins with confidence will end with doubts; the one who begins his journey in doubt will end it in confidence.
About manners
Manners reveal one's morals, just as a dress reveals one's waist.
The refined manners of some people are like poems with counted syllables.
If you take too much effort in your manners, they will lose their grace, which should be natural and effortless.
About love
It is impossible to love and be wise.
Marital love multiplies the human race, friendly love improves it, and immoral love corrupts and humiliates it.
A man is already half in love with every woman who listens to him talk.
By the way, quotes about love
About justice
Although justice cannot destroy vices, it does not allow them to cause harm.
Being fair in thought does not mean being fair in practice.
There are three sources of injustice: violence as such, malicious deceit hiding behind the name of law, and the cruelty of the law itself.
About anger
Anger is an absolute weakness; It is known that weak creatures are most susceptible to it: children, women, old people, the sick, etc.
You cannot irrevocably break any business in a fit of anger; and however you express your bitterness, do nothing that cannot be corrected.
About education
A habit is strongest when it begins in youth; this is called upbringing, which is, in essence, nothing more than early formed habits.
Natural gifts are like wild plants and need to be cultivated through scientific study.
About speech
Caution in words is higher than eloquence.
Long speeches promote business as much as a dress with a train helps walking.
Just as money determines the value of a commodity, words determine the price of swagger.
By the way, quotes about speech
About selfishness
Extreme selfish people are ready to burn down the house just to fry themselves some eggs.
Selfish wisdom is vile in all its forms.
After the vice of condemning everyone, the most intolerable one is praising oneself.
About the time
Time is the greatest of innovators.
To choose time is to save time, and what is done untimely is done in vain.
You can't defy age.
By the way, quotes about time
About the language
The genius, spirit, character of the people (nation) are manifested in his proverbs.
Aphorisms serve not only to entertain or decorate speech; they are, of course, important and useful in business life and in civil practice.
About superstitions
Avoiding superstitions is a superstition.
The main root of superstition is that people see only hits and not misses; at the same time they forget something else.
About the state
There is no greater harm to a power than mistaking cunning for wisdom.
Three things make a nation great and prosperous: fertile soil, active industry, and ease of movement of people and goods.
About the trip
In youth, travel serves to replenish one’s education; in adulthood, it serves to replenish experience.
A person who goes on a trip to a country whose language he does not know is actually going to school, not on a trip.
By the way, quotes about travel
About reading
Reading is a conversation with wise men, but action is a meeting with fools.
Read not to contradict and refute, not to take it on faith, and not to find a subject for conversation; but to think and reason.
About the act
What is most useful in action is what is most true in knowledge.
Whether sooner or later, they will certainly achieve the goal if they strive for it with the confidence that genius or instinct inspires.
About children
Children multiply our everyday worries and anxieties, but at the same time, thanks to them, death does not seem so terrible to us.
Children make work joyful, but they make failure seem more distressing.
By the way, quotes about children
About fate
It cannot be denied that external circumstances contribute to a person’s happiness. But mainly the fate of a person lies in his own hands.
Fortune makes a fool of the one to whom it bestows its favor.
By the way, quotes about fate
About drunkenness
No misfortunes or crimes destroy as many people and national wealth as drunkenness.
Many idiots and weak-minded people are born from parents who indulged in drunkenness.
About pride
All other vices are opposite to virtues; only pride comes into contact with them.
Pride is devoid of the best quality of vices - it is incapable of hiding.
About life ethics
Setting a good example is just as good as following it.
He who hobbles along a straight road will outpace a runner who has lost his way.
About frankness
Frankness is nothing more than spiritual impotence.
Excessive frankness is as indecent as complete nudity.
About the disease
A healthy body is a living room for the soul; the patient is a prison.
The cure can be worse than the disease.
About lies
A lie exposes a weak soul, a helpless mind, a vicious character.
At least be honest enough to not lie to others.
By the way, quotes about lies
About war
In peacetime, sons bury their fathers; in wartime, fathers bury their sons.
He who shows mercy to the enemy denies it to himself.
By the way, quotes about war
About silence
Silence is the virtue of fools.
He who knows how to remain silent hears many confessions; for who will reveal himself to a talker and a gossip?
About hope
Hope is a good breakfast, but a bad dinner.
Hopes are like cobwebs: small flies get stuck in them, but big flies break through.
About the experience
The best proof of all is experience.
Learning in itself gives instructions that are too general if they are not clarified by experience.
About money
Money is like manure: if you don't throw it around, it won't be of much use.
Money is a good servant, but a bad master.
By the way, quotes about money
About violence
Any violent measure is fraught with new evil.
Only anger and fear force people to use violence.
About loneliness
Anyone who loves solitude is either a wild animal or the Lord God.
The worst loneliness is not having true friends.
By the way, quotes about loneliness
About antiquity
Ancient times are the youth of the world.
Those who overly revere antiquity become a laughing stock in modern times.
About miscellaneous
In the dark, all colors are the same.
The first impression is always imperfect: it represents a shadow, a surface or a profile.
Love for the homeland begins with family.
Young people are more inclined to invent something than to judge something, to implement something rather than to advise, to rush around with different projects than to do a certain thing.
Be fair and respectful to the memory of your predecessor, otherwise this debt will certainly be given to him after you.
We have not accomplished anything great, but have only considered insignificant what was considered great.
Rumor is a bad messenger and an even worse judge.
The opportunity to steal creates a thief.
The ant itself is a wise creature, but it is an enemy to the garden.
The high tower can only be reached by a spiral staircase.
All nakedness is offensive, even nakedness of the soul. Stealth keeps others at a distance from us and keeps us safe. This is a screen that protects our intentions.
We draw wisdom from history; in poetry - wit; in mathematics - insight; in natural sciences - depth; in moral philosophy - seriousness; in logic and rhetoric - the ability to argue.
Bacon was not only a philosopher and writer, but also a major statesman. Unfortunately, his career came to a disastrous end as he was caught taking bribes. But fortunately, he spent the free time writing his latest philosophical works.
As we can see, the greatest attention in the above quotes is paid to issues of human manifestations, science, people, wealth, virtues.
Quotes about Bacon
- B. Johnson: No man ever spoke more deeply, more weightily, or allowed less vanity, less frivolity in his speech... Everyone who listened to him feared only that the speech would end.
- G. Hegel: Bacon's philosophy in general refers to philosophizing, which is based on the observation of the external nature and spiritual life of man in his inclinations, aspirations, in his rational and legal definitions. (by the way, quotes from Hegel)
- K. Marx: The true founder of English materialism and the experimental sciences of modern times in general was Bacon. Natural science is in his eyes a true science, and physics, based on the evidence of external senses, is the most important part of natural science. (by the way, quotes from Marx)
- A. Herzen: Bacon refined his mind with public affairs, he learned to think in public.
- A. Lunacharsky: In general, it must be said that, despite the vicissitudes of fate that befell Bacon, he was a relatively balanced and relatively optimistic type of man of the Renaissance. And this is not at all bad, because, of course, it was not pessimists like Hamlet or philosophizing hermits like Prospero who made history, but active people like Bacon.
- K. Jaspers: Bacon is considered the founder of modern empiricism and science. Both of these are incorrect, since he did not initially understand truly modern science—mathematical natural science—and it would never have been realized along the path that he proposed. However, Bacon, with the enthusiasm for something new characteristic of the Renaissance, devoted himself to thinking about knowledge as power, about incredible technical capabilities, about the destruction of illusions for the sake of a reasonable understanding of reality.
- B. Russell: Although it was science that interested Bacon, and although his overall view was scientific, he overlooked most of what the science of his time had done.
- V. Turchin: If Galileo can be called the founder of experimental physics, and Bacon its ideologist, then Descartes is both the founder and ideologist of theoretical physics.
In addition you can read:
- Descartes quotes
- Comenius quotes
- Dante Alighieri quotes
- Machiavelli quotes
- Goethe quotes
- Newton quotes
I would be grateful if you share the link to the article on social networks with your friends. Use the network buttons below .
Comments are also highly welcome!
Biography
Francis was born into the family of a politician and scientist Nicholas, and his wife Anne, who came from a well-known family at that time - her father raised the heir to the English and Irish thrones, Edward VI. The birth took place on January 22, 1561 in London.
From childhood, the boy was taught to be diligent and his thirst for knowledge was supported. As a teenager, he attended college at Cambridge University, then went to study in France, but the death of his father led to the fact that young Bacon had no money left, which affected his biography. Then he began to study law and from 1582 earned his living as a lawyer. Two years later he entered parliament, where he immediately became a prominent and significant figure. This led to his being appointed seven years later as an advisor to the Earl of Essex, who was the queen's favorite at the time. After the coup attempt launched by Essex in 1601, Bacon took part in court hearings as a prosecutor.
Criticizing the policies of the royal family, Francis lost the queen's patronage and was able to resume his career in full only in 1603, when a new monarch was on the throne. That same year he became a knight, and fifteen years later a baron. Three years later he was granted the title of Viscount, but the same year he was charged with bribery and deprived of his post, closing the doors to the royal court.
Despite the fact that he devoted many years of his life to law and advocacy, his heart was given to philosophy. He developed new thinking tools by criticizing Aristotle's deduction.
The Thinker died because of one of his experiments. He studied how cold affects the putrefactive process that had begun and caught a cold. At the age of sixty-five he died. After his death, one of the main works written by him was published - unfinished - “New Atlantis”. In it, he foresaw many discoveries of subsequent centuries, based on experimental knowledge.
Interesting Facts
1. Bacon also wrote a number of religious works: “Profession of Faith”, “Sacred Meditations”, “Translation of Certain Psalms into English”. In his Essays... Bacon, among other things, discusses various issues of religion, criticizes superstition and atheism.
Title page of the collected works of 18 books “Secrets of Art and Nature”. Francis Bacon opens the curtain on the right. Link
2. In Shakespearean studies there is a “Baconian version”, which attributes to Francis Bacon the authorship of the texts known as Shakespeare . Allegedly, it was he, and not the uneducated actor of the London Globe Theater, who was the real author of all Shakespeare's plays. True, this is still too bold a hypothesis. The vast majority of Shakespeare scholars adhere to the traditional version.
