Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Francis Bacon Philosopher

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: England
  • Born: Jan 22, 1561
  • Died: Apr 9, 1626

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St. Alban, QC, was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, essayist, and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. After his death, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution.

Bacon has been called the father of empiricism. His works established and popularised inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, or simply the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today.

Bacon was knighted in 1603, and created Baron Verulam in 1618 and Viscount St. Alban in 1621; as he died without heirs, both peerages became extinct upon his death. He famously died of pneumonia, contracted while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat.

It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative.

By indignities men come to dignities.

The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.

Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.

Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.

God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

Acorns were good until bread was found.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate and would not stay for an answer.

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

Science is but an image of the truth.

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

I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.

If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics.

Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

But men must know, that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.

Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.

It is impossible to love and to be wise.

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education in the elder, a part of experience.

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes adversity not without many comforts and hopes.

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.

God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.

Truth is a good dog but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

A bachelor's life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.

The worst men often give the best advice.

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.

God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.

Friends are thieves of time.

Age appears to be best in four things old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

Knowledge is power.

I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.

Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse.

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.

Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils for time is the greatest innovator.

Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

God's first creature, which was light.

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.

Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.

Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.

Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.