Francis Bacon Quotes

The learned man knows that he is ignorant.

Contrary to current cynicism about past golden ages, the abstraction known as 'the intelligent layperson' does exist - in the form of millions of folks with a passionate commitment to continuous learning.

A wise system of education will at last teach us how little man yet knows, how much he has still to learn.

Doubt is the origin of wisdom.

You may be able to read Bernard Shaw's plays, you may be able to quote Shakespeare or Voltaire or some new philosopher; but if you in yourself are not intelligent, if you are not creative, what is the point of this education?

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

My mother was a dominant force in my life. She had a very specific idea about education, which was: you should know everything about everything. It was quite simple. There was no exclusivity, and there really was no judgment.

I'm not quite pompous enough to think of myself as an educator or a man capable of definitive refutation of falsehoods.

He whose wisdom cannot help him, gets no good from being wise.

Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.

The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards the human spirit, is to rouse, to startle it to a life of constant and eager observation.

I think that if you're a thinking person you should always be trying to learn something new.

Deep-versed in books and shallow in himself.

You're smarter than TV. So what?

I am probably a pseudo-intellectual.

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't.

A college education shows a man how little other people know.

I am a humble but very earnest seeker after truth.

I learn from experience.

I've deliberately studied many things that I know, going in, I won't be able to assimilate. I read Plato, St. Thomas, the mystics, to exercise my mind.

Men should strive to think much and know little.

Some people drink from the fountain of knowledge, others just gargle.

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

I've never professed to be an intellectual. I don't try to be.

An intelligent person is never afraid or ashamed to find errors in his understanding of things.