It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself

For behavior, men learn it, as they take diseases, one of another.

Choose the best life; for habit will make it pleasant.

Imagination was given to man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

The Great Reform of Philosophy and Method, in which Bacon so eloquently called upon men to unite their exertions in his day, has, even in ours, been very imperfectly carried into effect. And even if his plan had been fully executed, it would now require to be pursued and extended.

The Lord Chancellor was not particularly interested in the writings of the humanists.

He never took a pride, as in the humour of some, in putting any of his guests, or that otherwise discours'd with him, to the blush; but was ever ready to countenance and encourage their abilities, whatever they were. Neither was he one that would appropriate the discourse to himself alone, but left a liberty to the rest of the company to take their turns; wherein he took pleasure to hear a man speak in his own faculty, and would draw him on, and allure him to discourse upon such a subject. And for himself, he despised no man's observations; but would light his torch at any man's candle.

If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin'dThe wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.

The doctrine of the Novum Organum may be summed up, from our point of view, as the sovereignty of technique. It represents, not merely a preoccupation with technique combined with a recognition that technical knowledge is never the whole of knowledge, but the assertion that technique and some material for it to work upon are all that matters. Nevertheless, this is not itself the beginning of the new intellectual fashion, it is only an early and unmistakable intimation of it: the fashion itself may be said to have sprung from the exaggeration of Bacon's hopes rather than from the character of his beliefs.

One of the simplest and broadest aspects under which to view the physical world, is that of a system of final causes, or, on the other hand, of initial or effective causes. Bacon, having it in view to extend our power over nature, adopted the latter. He took firm hold of the idea of causation (in the common sense of the word) as contrasted with that of design, refusing to mix up the two ideas in one inquiry, and denouncing such traditional interpretations of facts, as did but obscure the simplicity of the aspect necessary for his purpose. He saw what others before him might have seen in what they saw, but who did not see as he saw it. In this achievement of intellect, which has been so fruitful in results, lie his genius and his fame.