Roger Bacon Quotes

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  • In the mathematics I can report no deficience, except that it be that men do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of the pure mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too dull, they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it.

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

    Crazy   Writing   Men  
    Quoted in Kahn, The Codebreakers (1996).
  • But concerning vision alone is a separate science formed among philosophers, namely, optics, and not concerning any other sense ... It is possible that some other science may be more useful, but no other science has so much sweetness and beauty of utility. Therefore it is the flower of the whole of philosophy and through it, and not without it, can the other sciences be known.

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

    Looks   World   Dogma  
  • As regards authority I so proceed. Boetius says in the second prologue to his Arithmetic, 'If an inquirer lacks the four parts of mathematics, he has very little ability to discover truth.' And again, 'Without this theory no one can have a correct insight into truth.' And he says also, 'I warn the man who spurns these paths of knowledge that he cannot philosophize correctly.' And Again, 'It is clear that whosoever passes these by, has lost the knowledge of all learning.'

    Truth   Men   Path  
    Roger Bacon (2016). “Opus Majus, Volumes 1 and 2”, p.117, University of Pennsylvania Press
  • 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.

  • But we must here state that we should not see anything if there were a vacuum. But this would not be due to some nature hindering species, and resisting it, but because of the lack of a nature suitable for the multiplication of species; for species is a natural thing, and therefore needs a natural medium; but in a vacuum nature does not exist.

    Vacuums   Doe   Needs  
    Roger Bacon (2016). “Opus Majus, Volumes 1 and 2”, p.485, University of Pennsylvania Press
  • Mathematics is the gate and key to science.

    Math   Keys   Gates  
  • 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.

  • 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 (2016). “Opus Majus, Volumes 1 and 2”, p.4, University of Pennsylvania Press
  • Argument is conclusive, but it does not remove doubt.

    Doubt   Doe   Argument  
    "Memorable Quotations: Philosophers of Western Civilization". Book edited by Carol Dingle, p. 21, 2000.
  • All science requires mathematics.

    1267 OpusMajus, pt.4, ch.1 (translated by Robert Belle Burke, 1928).
  • Experimental science is the queen of knowledge.

  • 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.

    Art   Moving   Men  
  • To ask the proper question is half of knowing.

    "LIFE" Magazine, (p. 73), September 8, 1958.
  • ... mathematics is absolutely necessary and useful to the other sciences.

  • 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.

    1267 Opus Majus (translated by Robert Belle Burke, 1928).
  • A little learning is a dangerous thing but none at all is fatal.

  • 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.

    People   Brain   Facts  
    1267 OpusMajus, pt.4, ch.1 (translated by Robert Belle Burke, 1928).
  • All science requires mathematics. [Editors' summary of Bacon's idea, not Bacon's wording.]

    Science   Editors   Ideas  
  • No one really knew the sciences except the Lord Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, by reason of his length of life and experience, as well as of his studiousness and zeal. He knew mathematics and perspective, and there was nothing which he was unable to know; and at the same time he was sufficiently acquainted with languages to be able to understand the saints and the philosophers and the wise men of antiquity but his knowledge of languages was not such as to enable him to effect translations until the latter portion of his life.

    "Opus Tertium". Book by Roger Bacon, p. 91, 1267.
  • 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.

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

    "Opus Tertium" by Roger Bacon, (p. 70), (c. 1267).
  • There are four great sciences, without which the other sciences cannot be known nor a knowledge of things secured ... Of these sciences the gate and key is mathematics ... He who is ignorant of this [mathematics] cannot know the other sciences nor the affairs of this world.

    Keys   Ignorant   World  
    Roger Bacon (1928). “The Opus majus of Roger Bacon: a translation of Robert Belle Burke”
  • One man alone had really known the sciences, namely, Robert, Bishop of Lincoln.

    Men   Bishops   Known  
    "Opis Majus". Book by Roger Bacon, edited by Samuel Jebb, p. 45, 1733.
  • 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.

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

    Education   Two   Doubt  
  • [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.

    Truth   Science   Errors  
    Opus Majus bk. 1, ch. 4 (ca. 1267) (translation by Robert Burke)
  • Reasoning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.

    Mind   Doe   Path  
    1267 Opus Majus (translated by Robert Belle Burke, 1928).
  • The calendar is intolerable to all wisdom, the horror of all astronomy, and a laughing stock from a mathematician's point of view.

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