[N]ot only must we seek the measure of motions and actions by themselves, but much more in comparison; for this is of excellent use and very general application. Now we find that the flash of a gun is seen sooner than its report is heard... and this is owing it seems to the motion of light being more rapid than that of sound. We find to that visible images are received by the sight faster than they are dismissed; thus the strings of the violin, when struck by the finger, are to appearance doubled and tripled, because the new image is received before the old one is gone; which is also why the reason why rings being spun round look like globes, and a lighted torch, carried hastily at night, seems to have a tail. And it was upon this inequality of motions in point of velocity that Galileo built his theory of flux and reflux of the sea; supposing that the earth revolved faster than the water could follow; and that the water was therefore first gathered in a heap and then fell down, as we see in a basin of water moved quickly. But this he devised upon an assumption which cannot be allowed, viz. that the earth moves; and also without being well informed as to the sexhorary motion of the tide.

Above all, every relation must be considered as suspicious, which depends in any degree upon religion, as the prodigies of Livy: And no less so, everything that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors, who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for falsehood and fable.

Truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion.

Again, we should notice the force, effect, and consequences of inventions, which are nowhere more conspicuous than in those three which were unknown to the ancients; namely, printing, gunpowder, and the compass. For these three have changed the appearance and state of the whole world; first in literature, then in warfare, and lastly in navigation: and innumerable changes have been thence derived, so that no empire, sect, or star, appears to have exercised a greater power and influence on human affairs than these mechanical discoveries.

Let men learn (as we have said above) the difference that exists between the idols of the human mind, and the ideas of the Divine mind. The former are mere arbitrary abstractions; the latter the true marks of the Creator on his creatures, as they are imprinted on, and defined in matter, by true and exquisite touches. Truth, therefore, and utility are here perfectly identical.

There is another ground of hope that must not be omitted. Let men but think over their infinite expenditure of understanding, time, and means on matters and pursuits of far less use and value; whereof, if but a small part were directed to sound and solid studies, there is no difficulty that might not be overcome.

Another argument of hope may be drawn from this — that some of the inventions already known are such as before they were discovered it could hardly have entered any man's head to think of; they would have been simply set aside as impossible. For in conjecturing what may be men set before them the example of what has been, and divine of the new with an imagination preoccupied and colored by the old; which way of forming opinions is very fallacious, for streams that are drawn from the springheads of nature do not always run in the old channels.

No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common notions, and to apply the understanding, thus made fair and even, to a fresh examination of particulars. Thus it happens that human knowledge, as we have it, is a mere medley and ill-digested mass, made up of much credulity and much accident, and also of the childish notions which we at first imbibed.

Those who have handled sciences have been either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes a middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy; for it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history and mechanical experiments and lay it up in the memory whole, as it finds it, but lays it up in the understanding altered and digested. Therefore from a closer and purer league between these two faculties, the experimental and the rational (such as has never yet been made), much may be hoped.

Like strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones.

Sir Henry Wotton used to say that critics are like brushers of noblemen's clothes.

Sir Amice Pawlet, when he saw too much haste made in any matter, was wont to say. "Stay a while, that we may make an end the sooner."

His achievement was not the less great because it was indirect. His philosophical works, though little read now, "moved the intellects which moved the world." He made himself the eloquent voice of the optimism and resolution of the Renaissance. Never was any man so great a stimulus to other thinkers... The whole tenor and career of British thought have followed the philosophy of Bacon. His tendency to conceive the world in Democritean mechanical terms gave to his secretary, Hobbes, the starting-point for a thorough-going materialism; his inductive method gave to Locke the idea of an empirical psychology, bound by observation and freed from theology and metaphysics; and his emphasis on "commodities" and "fruits" found formulation in Bentham's identification of the useful and the good. Wherever the spirit of control has overcome the spirit of resignation, Bacon's influence has been felt. He is the voice of all those Europeans who have changed a continent from a forest into a treasure-land of art and science, and have made their little peninsula the center of the world... Everything is possible to man. Time is young; give us some little centuries, and we shall control and remake all things. We shall perhaps at last learn the noblest lesson of all, that man must not fight man, but must make war only on the obstacles that nature offers to the triumph of man.

This is unquestionably the nature of the principle of induction as proposed by Lord Bacon. Its useful and successful application, however, to the various departments of knowledge,—and there is scarcely any department to which, under suitable modifications, it may not be advantageously applied,—requires much care, attention, and assiduous patience. Bacon, therefore, employs the chief part of the first book of the Novum Organum in exposing the various prejudices and futile anticipations, which he calls the idols of the human mind, in contradistinction to the ideas of the divine mind, or those impressions of truth which are stamped upon the various elements and orders of creation. These idols he ranges under the four general classes, which he quaintly but expressively denominates Idols of the Tribe, Idols of the Den, Idols of the Forum, and Idols of the Theatre. The first class of idols, or prejudices, he represents as naturally inherent in the race of men, on account of the narrowness and imperfection of their views; the second, as peculiar to individuals, and arising from their peculiar habits and pursuits, hence entitled idols of the den or cave; the third, as springing from the mutual intercourse of mankind with each other, hence called idols of the forum or market; and the fourth, as originating in the false and fantastic theories of philosophers, exhibited from age to age as so many scenic representations on the stage of the intellectual world, and therefore appropriately styled idols of the theatre.

The "Baconian" sciences were the kind Francis Bacon had in mind when he issued a call to revitalize science by basing it on craftsmen's knowledge of nature. Bacon is remembered as the most effective critic of the traditional learning promulgated the elite institutions of his day. ...Bacon advocated compiling a "history of arts," or encyclopedia of crafts knowledge...

Bacon was one of the first to strike the key-note of materialism, not only by his inductive method (renovated from ill-digested Aristotle), but by the general tenor of his writings. He inverts the order of mental Evolution when saying that "the first Creation of God was the light of the sense; the last was the light of the reason; and his Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of the Spirit." It is just the reverse.

Bacon of Verulam, one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest of the precursors of modern philosophy, with his “Instauratio magna,” created the most logical method for directing intelligence in studies and replaced this method, based solely on sensory evidence, observation of nature, and experiments, with that of Aristotle, which derived everything from reasoning. Therefore, it was said that Bacon was the first to break through the Aristotelian school, while everyone else, either out of fear or lack of ingenuity, revered it.

Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.

What then remains but that we still should cry Not to be born, or, being born, to die?

Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns the water, or but writes in dust.

The world's a bubble, and the life of man Less than a span.

Cato said the best way to keep good acts in memory was to refresh them with new.

Cosmus, Duke of Florence, was wont to say of perfidious friends, that "We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends."

Pyrrhus, when his friends congratulated to him his victory over the Romans under Fabricius, but with great slaughter of his own side, said to them, "Yes; but if we have such another victory, we are undone".

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.

The beginning is from God: for the business which is in hand, having the character of good so strongly impressed upon it, appears manifestly to proceed from God, who is the author of good, and the Father of Lights. Now in divine operations even the smallest beginnings lead of a certainty to their end. And as it was said of spiritual things, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation," so is it in all the greater works of Divine Providence; everything glides on smoothly and noiselessly, and the work is fairly going on "before men are aware that it has begun. Nor should the prophecy of Daniel be forgotten, touching the last ages of the world: —"Many shall go to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased;" clearly intimating that the thorough passage of the world (which now by so many distant voyages seems to be accomplished, or in course of accomplishment), and the advancement of the sciences, are destined by fate, that is, by Divine Providence, to meet in the same age.

Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb.

Aristotle (…) a mere bond-servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious and well nigh useless.

For I find that even those that have sought knowledge for itself and not for benefit, or ostentation, or any practical enablement in the course of their life, have nevertheless propounded to themselves a wrong mark, namely, satisfaction, which men call truth, and not operation. For as in the courts and services of princes and states, it is a much easier matter to give satisfaction than to do the business; so in the inquiring of causes and reasons it is much easier to find out such causes as will satisfy the mind of man, and quiet objections, than such causes as will direct him and give him light to new experiences and inventions.

Knowledge, that tendeth but to satisfaction, is but as a courtesan, which is for pleasure, and not for fruit or generation.

It is not the pleasure of curiosity, nor the quiet of resolution, nor the raising of the spirit, nor victory of wit, nor faculty of speech (…) that are the true ends of knowledge (…), but it is a restitution and reinvesting, in great part, of man to the sovereignty and power, for whensoever he shall be able to call the creatures by their true names, he shall again command them.

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.

Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.

The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.

I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends, as I have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province; and if I could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof the one with frivolous disputations, confutations, and verbosities, the other with blind experiments and auricular traditions and impostures, hath committed so many spoils, I hope I should bring in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inventions and discoveries; the best state of that province. This, whether it be curiosity, or vain glory, or nature, or (if one take it favourably) philanthropia, is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be removed. And I do easily see, that place of any reasonable countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than of a man's own; which is the thing I greatly affect.

Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.

Francis Bacon long ago called attention to the play of predispositions or prejudices in man's life when he wrote of four "Idols," or types of false opinion, that man must avoid if he wishes to attain sound judgements....1. The idols of the tribe are those false opinions which, by the very nature of man himself, are likely to distort and discolor his judgements. Bacon recognized "the mind" as an active agent that tended to project its own whims and desires into its surroundings... therefore... man, collectively speaking, tends to be anthropocentric or "man-centered" in his investigations of nature.2. The idols of the cave are those errors which the individual makes in consequence of his peculiar or personal temperament and background. Each individual has been inevitably, if not unduly, influenced by certain traditions, authorities, and the like which have been especially admired in the particular "cave" or locality where his values came about as a reflection of what his associates valued.3. The idols of the market place are those errors which arise as a result of the ways we confuse one another, especially through the nonrigorous and vague or ambiguous use of language. Bacon recognized that language does not necessarily reflect either the content or the structure of reality, that it is quite possible to create "names" for nonexistent things. Men may think that reason governs the use of words; but in reality it is often words which govern reason.4. The idols of the theater are those errors or false opinions imbedded in an uncritically accepted tradition. Thus, pride of race, exaggerated nationalism, or perverted patriotism may become the essential traditions of a culture; and in some communities children grow up in a climate of social snobbery, narrow sectarianism in religion, and strict partisanism in politics.Bacon believed that "the power of reason" gave man the ability to rise above prejudice.

As we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of causes, and productions of effects: so that part which concerneth the inquiry of causes we do subdivide according to the received and sound division of causes. The one part, which is physic, inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes; and the other, which is metaphysic, handleth the formal and final causes.

Lucid intervals and happy pauses.

Nil terribile nisi ipse timor.

Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress.

The law of nature teaches me to speak in my own defence: With respect to this charge of bribery I am as innocent as any man born on St. Innocents Day. I never had a bribe or reward in my eye or thought when pronouncing judgment or order (…). I am ready to make an oblation of myself to the King. (17 April 1621)

He that defers his charity 'till he is dead, is (if a man weighs it rightly) rather liberal of another man's, than of his own.

Ne mireris, si vulgus verius loquatur quam honoratiores; quia etiam tutius loquitur.

[I]n the system of Copernicus there are found many and great inconveniences; for both the loading of the earth with triple motion is very incommodious, and the separation of the sun from the company of the planets, with which it has so many passions in common, is likewise a difficulty, and the introduction of so much immobility into nature, by representing the sun and stars as immovable, especially being of all bodies the highest and most radiant, and making the moon revolve about the earth in an epicycle, and some other assumptions of his, are the speculations of one who cares not what fictions he introduces into nature, provided his calculations answer. But if it be granted that the earth moves, it would seem more natural to suppose that there is no system at all, but scattered globes (…) than to constitute a system of which the sun is the centre. And this the consent of ages and of antiquity has rather embraced and approved. For the opinion concerning the motion of the earth is not new, but revived from the ancients (…) whereas the opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable is altogether new (…) and was first introduced by Copernicus. (…) But if the earth moves, the stars may either be stationary, as Copernicus thought or, as it is far more probable, and has been suggested by Gilbert, they may revolve each round its own centre in its own place, without any motion of its centre, as the earth itself does (…). But either way, there is no reason why there should not be stars above stars til they go beyond our sight.

Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.

It is true that may hold in these things, which is the general root of superstition; namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.

My mind is calm, for my fortune is not my felicity. I know I have clean hands and a clean heart, and I hope a clean house for friends or servants; but Job himself, or whoever was the justest judge, by such hunting for matters against him as hath been used against me, may for a time seem foul, especially in a time when greatness is the mark and accusation is the game.

Audacter calumniare, semper aliquid haeret.

Credulity in arts and opinions (…) is likewise of two kinds viz., when men give too much belief to arts themselves, or to certain authors in any art. The sciences that sway the imagination more than the reason are principally three viz., astrology, natural magic, and alchemy (…). Alchemy may be compared to the man who told his sons that he had left them gold, buried somewhere in his vineyard; while they by digging found no gold, but by turning up the mould about the roots of the vines procured a plentiful vintage. So the search and endeavours to make gold have brought many useful inventions to light.