Francis Bacon Quotes

Don't hold strong opinions about things you don't truly understand.

I know too much to be a sceptic and too little to be a dogmatist.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

Large skepticism leads to large understanding. Small skepticism leads to small understanding. No skepticism leads to no understanding.

Conventional dogmas, even if endowed with the authority of an Aristotle - ancient or modern - must be tested vigorously. If they are found wanting, we need not bother with them. But if they are found to be substantially correct, we may not overlook them.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts, never inquires. To doubt is heresy, to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the Church does neither.

By doubting we come to questioning, and by questioning we perceive the truth.

If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress.

Incredulity is not wisdom.

No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.

To be an atheist you have to have ten thousand times more imagination than if you are a religious fundamentalist. You must take the responsibility to acquire information, digest and use it to understand what you can.

There's all of this stuff where we have so much debate over nonsense; it could be cured if we had a better educational system, if we trained people to really try and look into things on their own. That's a tough thing to do, particularly with the educational system staggering.

I hate books; they only teach people to talk about what they don't understand.

My wish for you... is that your skeptic-eclectic brain be flooded with the light of truth.

Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.

There are truths which some men despise because they have not examined, and which they will not examine because they despise.

Philosophers have often held dispute As to the seat of thought in man and brute For that the power of thought attends the latter My friend, thy beau, hath made a settled matter, And spite of dogmas current in all ages, One settled fact is better than ten sages. (O,Tempora! O,Mores!)

Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means.

Science ... warns me to be careful how I adopt a view which jumps with my preconceptions, and to require stronger evidence for such belief than for one to which I was previously hostile. My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations.

The alternative to doubt is authority, against which science had fought for centuries.

By doubting we are led to enquire, and by enquiry we perceive the truth.

Doubt is the first step towards knowledge, not faith.

For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations.

Science begets knowledge; opinion, ignorance.