Francis Bacon

In nature things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place.

Deformed persons commonly take revenge on nature.

Brutes by their natural instinct have produced many discoveries, whereas men by discussion and the conclusions of reason have given birth to few or none.

...neither is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper parts of any science, if you stand but upon the level of the same science, and ascend not to a higher science.

But the best demonstration by far is experience, if it go not beyond the actual experiment.

The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search for truth. So it does more harm than good.

Let every student of nature take this as his rule, that whatever the mind seizes upon with particular satisfaction is to be held in suspicion.

The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this-that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.

Never any knowledge was delivered in the same order it was invented.

Liberty of speech invites and provokes liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man's knowledge.

We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.

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.

The remedy is worse than the disease.

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

For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.

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

Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.

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.

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

Science is but an image of the truth.

Silence is the virtue of fools.