Roger Bacon Quotes

There are two modes of acquiring knowledge, namely by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.

It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.

The intellectual takes as a starting point his self and relates the world to his own sensibilities; the scientist accepts an existing field of knowledge and seeks to map out the unexplored terrain.

I would proclaim that the vast majority of what [say, Scientific American] is true-yet my ability to defend such a claim is weaker than I would like. And most likely the readers, authors, and editors of that magazine would be equally hard pressed to come up with cogent, non-technical arguments convincing a skeptic of this point, especially if pitted against a clever lawyer arguing the contrary. How come Truth is such a slippery beast?

Can the knowledge deriving from reason even begin to compare with knowledge perceptible by sense?

No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.

The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas.

Nothing can be found in the intellect if previously has not been found in the senses.

There is no question that creative intelligence comes not through learning things you find in books or histories that have already been written, but by focusing on and giving value to experience as it happens.

The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative.

Everything is educational.

By playing, you learn.

We must consider both the ultimate end and all clear sensory evidence, to which we refer our opinions; for otherwise everything will be full of uncertainty and confusion.

Ultimately all knowing, from the highest to the lowest, is the result of experience; it arises on the way of experiences.

Except in pure mathematics, nothing is known for certain (although much is certainly false).

Science is a way to teach how something gets to be known, what is not known, to what extent things are known (for nothing is known absolutely), how to handle doubt and uncertainty, what the rules of evidence are, how to think about things so that judgments can be made, how to distinguish truth from fraud, and from show.

There is, it seems to us, At best, only a limited value In the knowledge derived from experience.

Truth is something that we can attempt to doubt, and then perhaps, after much exertion, discover that part of the doubt is not justified.

The beliefs which we have most warrant for, have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded.

Belief is not the beginning of knowledge - it is the end.

For, strictly considered, what is all Knowledge too but recorded Experience, and a product of History; of which, therefore, Reasoning and Belief, no less than Action and Passion, are essential materials?

To argue that the gaps in knowledge which confront the seeker must be filled, not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity.

You must learn all things, both the unshaken heart of persuasive truth, and the opinions of mortals in which there is no true warranty.

Just in ratio as knowledge increases, faith diminishes.

I try never to let my schooling get in the way of my education.