Quote#Time
My mind is calm, for my fortune is not my felicity. I know I have…
Quote byFrancis Bacon · 1561–1626
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Quoted by Thomas Fowler in "Francis Bacon 1561–1626 (1885).
English (original)
My mind is calm, for my fortune is not my felicity. I know I have clean hands and a clean heart, and I hope a clean house for friends or servants; but Job himself, or whoever was the justest judge, by such hunting for matters against him as hath been used against me, may for a time seem foul, especially in a time when greatness is the mark and accusation is the game.
— Francis Bacon
More from Francis Bacon
The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est. Variants: Scientia ipsa potentia est. Knowledge itself is power. Scientia potestas est. / Scientia potentia est. / Scientia est potentia. Knowledge is power.
I have taken all knowledge to be my province
Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature. Beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.
We are wont to call that human reasoning which we apply to Nature the anticipation of Nature (as being rash and premature) and that which is properly deduced from things the interpretation of Nature.
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.