Francis Bacon

By indignities men come to dignities.

Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.

Acorns were good until bread was found.

Many a man’s strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marryA young man not yet, an elder man not at all.

A physicist is an atom’s way of knowing about atoms.

Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

To expect that the intricacies of science will be pierced by a careless glance, or the eminences of fame ascended without labour, is to expect a peculiar privilege, a power denied to the rest of mankind; but to suppose that the maze is inscrutable to diligence, or the heights inaccessible to perseverance, is to submit tamely to the tyranny of fancy, and enchain the mind in voluntary shackles.

The latest refinements of science are linked with the cruelties of the Stone Age.

Science is always wrong, it never solves a problem without creating ten more.

If I could snap my fingers and do one thing in science, I would get more funding for basic science. But the level of funding that needs to be done is not on the order of millions, like the cost of the Breakthrough Prizes. It’s billions to tens of billions.

Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.

Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories – those that don’t work, those that break down and those that get lost.

If you have a glass full of liquid you can discourse forever on its qualities, discuss whether it is cold, warm, whether it is really and truly composed of H-2-O, or even mineral water, or sake. Meditation is Drinking it!

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

Science becomes dangerous only when it imagines that it has reached its goal.

Every succeeding scientific discovery makes greater nonsense of old-time conceptions of sovereignty.

If you look at the history of our country over the last 100 years, there have been periods where science and research have been celebrated. They were really kind of held up as heroes in society, which encouraged a generation of people to go into these fields.