Roger Bacon Quotes

Quotes about:

• There are four chief obstacles in grasping truth ... namely, submission to faulty and unworthy authority, influence of custom, popular prejudice, and the concealment of our own ignorance accompanied by an ostentatious display of our knowledge.

  Roger Bacon

  Ignorance, Prejudice, Four

  Roger Bacon (2016). “Opus Majus, Volumes 1 and 2”, p.4, University of Pennsylvania Press

  62 Copy quote

• Knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom.

  Roger Bacon

  Inspirational, Education, Wisdom

  86 Copy quote

• Reasoning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.

  Roger Bacon

  Mind, Doe, Path

  1267 Opus Majus (translated by Robert Belle Burke, 1928).

  77 Copy quote

• A little learning is a dangerous thing but none at all is fatal.

  Roger Bacon

  Ignorance, Littles, Dangerous

  23 Copy quote

• It is easier for a man to burn down his own house than to get rid of his prejudices.

  Roger Bacon

  Men, House, Prejudice

  42 Copy quote

• To ask the proper question is half of knowing.

  Roger Bacon

  Knowledge, Knowing, Words Of Wisdom

  "LIFE" Magazine, (p. 73), September 8, 1958.

  28 Copy quote

• Cease to be ruled by dogmas and authorities; look at the world!

  Roger Bacon

  Looks, World, Dogma

  41 Copy quote

• The strongest arguments prove nothing so long as the conclusions are not verified by experience. Experimental science is the queen of sciences and the goal of all speculation.

  Roger Bacon

  Queens, Science, Long

  41 Copy quote

• There are two modes of knowledge: through argument and through experience. Argument brings conclusions and compels us to concede them, but it does not cause certainty nor remove doubts that the mind may rest in truth, unless this is provided by experience.

  Roger Bacon

  Education, Two, Doubt

  33 Copy quote

• Mathematics is the gate and key to science.

  Roger Bacon

  Math, Keys, Gates

  22 Copy quote

• Neglect of mathematics work injury to all knowledge, since he who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences or things of this world. And what is worst, those who are thus ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance, and so do not seek a remedy.

  Roger Bacon

  Learning, Ignorance, Science

  36 Copy quote

• Atheists are like wild feral dogs wih no master. But Christians are like loving dogs with a giving and loving master. Domesticated dogs will love you always, but Feral wild dogs HAVE to be put down. they are a danger to us all.

  Roger Bacon

  Christian, Dog, Atheist

  31 Copy quote

• There are in fact four very significant stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge.

  Roger Bacon

  Wisdom, Ignorance, Men

  "Teaching the pursuit of science". Book by John H. Woodburn and Ellsworth Scott Obourn, p. 70, 1965.

  7 Copy quote

• All sciences are connected; they lend each other material aid as parts of one great whole, each doing its own work, not for itself alone, but for the other parts; as the eye guides the body and the foot sustains it and leads it from place to place.

  Roger Bacon

  Eye, Science, Feet

  Roger Bacon, John Henry Bridges (2010). “The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon”, p.88, Cambridge University Press

  29 Copy quote

• Argument is conclusive, but it does not remove doubt.

  Roger Bacon

  Doubt, Doe, Argument

  "Memorable Quotations: Philosophers of Western Civilization". Book edited by Carol Dingle, p. 21, 2000.

  23 Copy quote

• The conquest of learning is achieved through the knowledge of languages.

  Roger Bacon

  Language, Language Learning, Conquest

  22 Copy quote

• For the things of this world cannot be made known without a knowledge of mathematics.

  Roger Bacon

  Knowledge, Math, World

  Roger Bacon (2016). “Opus Majus, Volumes 1 and 2”, p.128, University of Pennsylvania Press

  26 Copy quote

• A man is crazy who writes a secret in any other way than one which will conceal it from the vulgar.

  Roger Bacon

  Crazy, Writing, Men

  Quoted in Kahn, The Codebreakers (1996).

  23 Copy quote

• 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.

  Roger Bacon

  Inspirational, Two, Doubt

  1267 Opus Majus (translated by Robert Belle Burke, 1928).

  21 Copy quote

• It is not necessarily impossible for human beings to fly, but it so happens that God did not give them the knowledge of how to do it. It follows, therefore, that anyone who claims that he can fly must have sought the aid of the devil. To attempt to fly is therefore sinful.

  Roger Bacon

  Giving, Devil, Impossible

  7 Copy quote

• First, by the figurations of art there be made instruments of navigation without men to row them, as great ships to brooke the sea, only with one man to steer them, and they shall sail far more swiftly than if they were full of men; also chariots that shall move with unspeakable force without any living creature to stir them. Likewise an instrument may be made to fly withall if one sits in the midst of the instrument, and do turn an engine, by which the wings, being artificially composed, may beat the air after the manner of a flying bird.

  Roger Bacon

  Art, Moving, Men

  9 Copy quote

• Few have attained to consummate wisdom in the perfection of philosophy: Solomon attained to it, and Aristotle in relation to his times, and in a later age Avicenna, and in our own days the recently deceased Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, and Adam Marsh.

  Roger Bacon

  Philosophy, Perfection, Age

  "Opus Tertium" by Roger Bacon, (p. 70), (c. 1267).

  21 Copy quote

• All science requires mathematics. The knowledge of mathematical things is almost innate in us. This is the easiest of sciences, a fact which is obvious in that no one's brain rejects it; for laymen and people who are utterly illiterate know how to count and reckon.

  Roger Bacon

  People, Brain, Facts

  1267 OpusMajus, pt.4, ch.1 (translated by Robert Belle Burke, 1928).

  20 Copy quote

• For if any man who never saw fire proved by satisfactory arguments that fire burns. His hearer's mind would never be satisfied, nor would he avoid the fire until he put his hand in it that he might learn by experiment what argument taught.

  Roger Bacon

  Men, Fire, Hands

  "Memorable Quotations: Philosophers of Western Civilization". Book by Carol A. Dingle, p. 21, 2000.

  14 Copy quote

• [I]f in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the foundations of knowledge in mathematics, in so far as disposed through it we are able to reach certainty in other sciences and truth by the exclusion of error.

  Roger Bacon

  Truth, Science, Errors

  Opus Majus bk. 1, ch. 4 (ca. 1267) (translation by Robert Burke)

  6 Copy quote

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