Francis Bacon Quotes

       Francis Bacon
       1561-1626
      
       Sir Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban KC, son of Nicholas Bacon by his second wife Anne (Cooke) Bacon, was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific revolution. Bacon was knighted in 1603, created Baron Verulam in 1618, and Viscount St Alban in 1621.
      
       There are some scholars who believe that Bacon's vision for a Utopian New World in North America was laid out in his novel The New Atlantis, which depicts a mythical island, Bensalem, in the Pacific Ocean west of Peru. He envisioned a land where there would be greater rights for women, the abolishing of slavery, elimination of debtors' prisons, separation of church and state, and freedom of religious and political expression. Francis Bacon played a leading role in creating the British colonies, especially in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Newfoundland.
      
       Thomas Jefferson considered Francis Bacon to be one of the three greatest men who ever lived, "Bacon, Locke and Newton" were "the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception." Francis Bacon's influence can also be seen on a variety of religious and spiritual authors, and on groups that have utilized his writings in their own belief systems.

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.     Topics: Achievement The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.     Topics: Angels, Pride, Knowledge Atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of Man.     Topics: Atheism, The Heart Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.     Topics: Books Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.     Topics: Books There was never law, or sect, or opinion did so much magnify goodness, as the Christian religion doth.     Topics: Christianity All the crimes on earth do not destroy so many of the human race, nor alienate so much property, as drunkenness.     Topics: Drunkenness 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.     Topics: Examples, Truth 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.     Topics: Friendship When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative.     Topics: Friendship, Laughter The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship.     Topics: Friendship Our humanity were a poor thing but for the divinity that stirs within us.     Topics: God