Roger Bacon Quotes
- All science requires mathematics. The knowledge of mathematical things is almost innate in us. This is the easiest of sciences, a fact which is obvious in that no one's brain rejects it; for laymen and people who are utterly illiterate know how to count and reckon.
- Argument is conclusive, but it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment.
- For if any man who never saw fire proved by satisfactory arguments that fire burns. His hearer's mind would never be satisfied, nor would he avoid the fire until he put his hand in it that he might learn by experiment what argument taught.
- For the things of this world cannot be made known without a knowledge of mathematics.
- Reasoning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.
- The strongest arguments prove nothing so long as the conclusions are not verified by experience. Experimental science is the queen of sciences and the goal of all speculation.
- There are two modes of acquiring knowledge, namely by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.
- There are in fact four very different stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge.
- It is good discretion not make too much of any man at the first; because one cannot hold out that proportion.
- Good thoughts, though God accept them, yet toward men are little better than good dreams except they be put in action.
- The greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel.
- Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
- 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.
- Houses are built to live in, more than to look on; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had.
- Men suppose their reason has command over their words; still it happens that words in return ex reason.
- Books are ships which pass through the vast sea of time.
- Perils commonly ask to be paid on pleasures.
- It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.
- If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune: for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible.
- Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.
- Ill Fortune never crushed that man whom good Fortune deceived not.
- The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.
- The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man's body.
- Suspicions that the mind, of itself, gathers, are but buzzes; but suspicions that are artificially nourished, and put into men's heads by the tales an of others, have stings.
- There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little, and therefore men should remedy procuring to know more, and not keep the smother.
- Studies teach not their own use; that is a wisdom without them and above them, won by observation.
- Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral and rhetoric, able to contend.
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- Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them.
- Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
- Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.
- Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.
- He that hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
- Children sweeten labors; but they make misfortunes more bitter.
- The folly of one man is the fortune of another; for no man prospers so suddenly as by others' errors.
- Friends are thieves of time.
- There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.
- A man is an ill husband of his honour, that entereth into any action, the failing wherein may disgrace him more than the carrying of it through can honour him.
- Fame, if like a river, beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.
- It is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence and turn upon the poles of truth.
- The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess, neither can angel or man come in danger by it.
- Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.
- The eye of the understanding is like the eye of the sense; for as you may see great objects through or holes, so you may see great axioms of small and contemptible instances.
- Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.
- A man finds himself seven years older the day after his marriage.
- Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and Adversity is not without comforts and hopes.
- He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity.
- There is no worse torture than the torture of laws.
- That law may be set down as good which is certain in meaning, just in precept, convenient in agreeable to the form of government, and of virtue in those that live under it.
- Knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the cause frustrates the effect.
- It is a miserable state of mind, to have few things to desire and many things to fear: and yet is the case of Kings.
- By taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing over it, he is superior.
- He that studieth revenge keepeth his own wounds green.
- Time is the greatest of innovators.
- A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he has lost no time.
- Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.
- No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of Truth.
- Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
- Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
- Certainly, virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed or for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.
- In peace the sons bury their fathers and in war the fathers bury their sons.
- The cord breaketh at last by the weakest pull.
- Philosophy, when superficially studied, excites doubt; when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.
- The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense: the last was the light of reason: and his sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his Spirit.
- Nothing is to be feared but fear.
- Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.
- We are much beholden to Machiavelli and others that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.
- Men commonly think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and imbibed opinions, but generally according to custom.
- Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.
- There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and a flatterer.
- He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.
- God never wrought miracles to convince atheism, because His ordinary works convince it.
- Atheism is rather in the life than in the heart of man.
- Beauty is as summer fruits which are easy to corrupt and cannot last; and for the most part it makes a dissolute youth, and an age a little out of countenance; but if it light well, it makes virtues shine and vice blush.
- The sum of behaviour is to retain a man's own dignity, without intruding upon the liberty of others.
- A healthy body is a guest chamber for the soul: a sick body is a prison.
- Boldness is a child of ignorance.
- Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.
- Some books are to be tasted; others swallowed; and some to be chewed and digested.
- If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin with doubts, and are patient in them, we shall end in certainties.
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- The desire of power in excess caused angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity is no excess, neither can man or angels come into danger by it.
- The place of justice is a hallowed place.
- If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.
- Custom is the principle magistrate of man's life.
- The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three. First to lay asleep opposition and to surprise. For where a man's intentions are published, it is an alarum to call up all that are against them. The second is to reserve a man's self a fair retreat: for if a man engage himself, by a manifest declaration, he must go through, or take a fall. The third is, the better to discover the mind of another. For to him that opens himself, men will hardly show themselves adverse; but will fair let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to freedom of thought.
- It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many to fear.
- Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.
- Envy has no holidays.
- The speaking in a perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but love.
- He that gives good advice builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.
- Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.
- Liberty of Speech inviteth and provoketh liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man's knowledge.
- When any of the four pillars of the government, religion, justice, counsel, and treasure, are mainly shaken or weakened, men have need to pray for fair weather.
- A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.
- For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.
- A bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint.
- But men must know, that in this theater of man's life it is reserved only for God and the angels to be lookers on.
- Acorns were good until bread was found.
- Time is the greatest innovator.
- A sudden, bold, and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.
- A king is one who has few things to desire and many things to fear.
- The mind is the man, and knowledge mind; a man is but what he knoweth.
- Knowledge and human power are synonymous.
- Knowledge itself is power.
- The lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes a wrong one. Nay, it is obvious that the more active and swift the latter is the further he will go astray.
- A crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures.
- Money is like muck, not good unless it be spread.
- A good name is like a precious ointment; it filleth all around about, and will not easily away; for the odors of ointments are more durable than those of flowers.
- Man, being the servant and interpreter of nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.
- Nature is often hidden; sometimes overcome; seldom extinguished.
- A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
- The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears.
- I hold every man a debtor to his profession.
- A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
- He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils, for time is the greatest innovator.
- They that deny a God destroy man's nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and, if he be not kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.
- The best preservative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend.
- My name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and to the next age.
- Of great riches there is no real use, except in the distribution; the rest is but conceit.
- Great riches have sold more men than they have bought.
- A little science estranges a man from God. A lot of science brings him back.
- Silence is the virtue of fools.
- Prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue.
- The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.
- They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they see nothing but sea.
- I would live to study, and not study to live.
- He that will have his son have a respect for him and his orders, must himself have a great reverence for his son.
- Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.
- Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.
- Vain-glorious men are the scorn of the wise, the admiration of fools, the idols of paradise, and the slaves of their own vaunts.
- The ways to enrich are many, and most of them foul.
- Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.
- All science requires mathematics. The knowledge of mathematical things is almost innate in us. . . . This is the easiest of sciences, a fact which is obvious in that no one's brain rejects it; for laymen and people who are utterly illiterate know how to count and reckon.
- All things are admired either because they are new or because they are great.
- A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
- By far the best proof is experience.
- Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.
- Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.
- Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.
- He of whom many are afraid ought to fear many.
- I have taken all knowledge to be my province.
- 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.
- In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.
- Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.
- Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.
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- Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to the more ought law to weed it out.
- Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.
- The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship.
- They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
- There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion
- Houses are built to live in, not to look on; therefore, let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had.
- Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est Translation: Knowledge is power
- In charity there is no excess. Source: Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature
- Man seeketh in society comfort, use and protection.
- Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that 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.
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