1001Philosophers

Francis Bacon Quotes on Truth

Francis Bacon was a 16th and early 17th-century English philosopher, statesman, and essayist, regarded as one of the founders of the modern scientific method and a major figure of early modern philosophy. This page collects quotes attributed to Francis Bacon on the topic of truth, drawn from across the philosopher's works.

Quotes

  • “If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

    Book I, v, 8
  • “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”

    Of Beauty https://www.authorama.com/essays-of-francis-bacon-43.html
  • “Libraries are as the shrine where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.”

    Wikiquote
  • “Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral (1597), XXIX: "Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates.”

    Nay, number (itself) in armies, importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage ; for (as Virgil saith) it never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.