Résumé général

Aussi connu(e) sous :	Sir Francis Bacon
Date de naissance :	22 Janvier 1561
Ville de naissance :	Strand, London
Nationalité :	England
Sexe :	Masculin
Profession :	Philosopher
Religion :	Anglicanism
Date de décès :	09 Avril 1626
Cause du décès :	Pneumonia
Ville de décès :	Highgate

Biographie

Francis Bacon, baron de Verulam, vicomte de St Albans, homme d'État et philosophe anglais est un des pionniers de la pensée scientifique moderne.

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Experience professionnelle

1617 - 1621

Lord Chancellor

1588 - 1594

Member of Parliament

1586 - 1588

Member of Parliament

Education

N/C

Trinity College, Cambridge

Citations de Francis Bacon

• “ The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.”
• “ Look to make your course regular, that men may know beforehand what they may expect.”
• “ A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.”

Plus de citations de Francis Bacon

Biographie

Citations

• “ The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.”
• “ Look to make your course regular, that men may know beforehand what they may expect.”
• “ A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.”
• “ It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.”
• “ Atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man.”
• “ Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.”
• “ What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.”
• “ Science is but an image of the truth.”
• “ Wives are young men's mistresses; companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.”
• “ Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.”
• “ They are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they see nothing but sea.”
• “ Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.”
• “ Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.”
• “ Anger makes dull men witty -- but it keeps them poor.”
• “ Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.”
• “ 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.”
• “ Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.”
• “ 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 of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self.”
• “ A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.”
• “ The place of justice is a hallowed place.”
• “ God almighty first planted a garden: and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasure.”
• “ Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.”
• “ There be three things which make a nation great and prosperous: a fertile soil, busy workshops, easy conveyance for men and goods from place to place.”
• “ There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”
• “ Mysteries are due to secrecy.”
• “ Nuptial love makes mankind; friendly love perfects it; but wanton love corrupts and debases it.”
• “ The joys of parents are secret, and so are their grieves and fears.”
• “ A man who contemplates revenge keeps his wounds green.”
• “ Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.”
• “ Men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts.”
• “ He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marryA young man not yet, an elder man not at all.”
• “ As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.”
• “ Money makes a good servant, but a bad master.”
• “ Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.”
• “ Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.”
• “ All colors will agree in the dark.”
• “ Ask counsel of both timesof the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.”
• “ A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.”
• “ It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man's judgment.”
• “ Knowledge and human power are synonymous.”
• “ The person is a poor judge who by an action can be disgraced more in failing than they can be honored in succeeding.”
• “ Knowledge is power.”
• “ Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.”
• “ Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.”
• “ Time is the measure of business.”
• “ Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.”
• “ Age will not be defied.”
• “ Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.”
• “ The best armor is to keep out of gunshot.”
• “ Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.”
• “ Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible.”
• “ Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.”
• “ It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tost upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage ground of truth... and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below.”
• “ I hold every man a debtor to his profession.”
• “ 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?.”
• “ 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.”
• “ Consistency is the foundation of virtue.”
• “ 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.”
• “ A good conscience is a continual feast.”
• “ Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body, and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.”
• “ If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.”
• “ The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.”
• “ By indignities men come to dignities.”
• “ Riches are for spending.”
• “ Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper.”
• “ Of great wealth there is no real use, except in its distribution, the rest is just conceit.”
• “ There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.”
• “ There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little, and therefore men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not keep their suspicions in smother.”
• “ A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
• “ For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.”
• “ 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.”
• “ God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.”
• “ Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.”
• “ Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.”
• “ Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.”
• “ 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.”
• “ Nature is commanded by obeying her.”
• “ No man's fortune can be an end worthy of his being.”
• “ Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion.”
• “ It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.”
• “ 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 and whisperings of others, have stings.”
• “ He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.”
• “ To be free minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one of the best precepts of long lasting.”
• “ Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.”
• “ 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.”
• “ This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.”
• “ The mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.”
• “ Imagination was given man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for what he is.”
• “ Silence is the virtue of fools.”
• “ The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.”
• “ Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.”
• “ For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.”
• “ God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.”
• “ 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.”
• “ Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a little, the price will fall.”
• “ People of great position are servants times three, servants of their country, servants of fame, and servants of business.”
• “ 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.”
• “ Ill Fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived not.”
• “ God's first creature, which was light.”
• “ The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.”
• “ It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.”
• “ Some books are to be tasted; others to be swallowed; and some few to be chewed and digested.”
• “ The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs.”
• “ If money be not they servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.”
• “ In charity there is no excess.”
• “ People usually think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and ingrained opinions, but generally act according to custom.”
• “ I would live to study, and not study to live.”
• “ Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.”
• “ Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.”
• “ Many a man's strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.”
• “ Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.”
• “ I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.”
• “ 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.”
• “ 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.”
• “ It is natural to die as to be born.”
• “ Young men are fitter to invent, than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and fitter for new projects than for settled business; Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and that, which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them, like an unruly horse, that will neither stop nor turn. 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.”
• “ Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”
• “ Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.”
• “ 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.”
• “ Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.”
• “ It was prettily devised of Aesop, The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said, what dust do I raise!”
• “ Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability.”
• “ For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocence, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.”
• “ Be not penny-wise. Riches have wings. Sometimes they fly away of themselves, and sometimes they must be set flying to bring in more.”
• “ That things are changed, and that nothing really perishes, and that the sum of matter remains exactly the same, is sufficiently certain.”
• “ Acorns were good until bread was found.”
• “ Judges ought to be more learned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.”
• “ 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.”
• “ To choose time is to save time.”
• “ Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.”
• “ We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.”
• “ 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.”
• “ None of the affections have been noted to fascinate and bewitch but envy.”
• “ 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.”
• “ Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.”
• “ Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.”
• “ It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.”
• “ Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.”
• “ In contemplation, if a man begins with certainties he shall end in doubts; but if he be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”
• “ The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are.”
• “ Suspicion amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they never fly by twilight.”
• “ Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.”
• “ People of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon and seldom drive business home to it's conclusion, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.”
• “ Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.”
• “ Cure the disease and kill the patient.”
• “ Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.”
• “ They that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.”
• “ Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.”
• “ Without friends the world is but a wilderness. There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his grieves to his friend, but he grieveth the less.”
• “ I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind.”
• “ The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.”
• “ Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.”
• “ Opportunity makes a thief.”

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