The New Organon Quotes

“The Idols of Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions as well of the sense as of the mind are according to the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.”
― Francis Bacon, Novum Organum

“The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds.”
― Francis Bacon, Novum Organum

“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.”
― Francis Bacon, The New Organon

“Truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion.”
― Francis Bacon, Novum Organum

“It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives.”
― Francis Bacon, The New Organon

“Let every student of nature take this as a rule,-- that whatever his mind seizes and dwells upon with peculiar satisfaction is to be held in suspicion.”
― Francis Bacon, The New Organon

“Nothing is so mischievous as the apotheosis of error.”
― Francis Bacon, The New Organon

“If you read a piece of text through twenty times, you will not learn it by heart so easily as if you read it ten times while attempting to recite from time to time and consulting the text when your memory fails.”
― Francis Bacon, The New Organon

“Once the human mind has favoured certain views, it pulls everything else into agreement with and support for them. Should they be outweighed by more powerful countervailing considerations, it either fails to notice these, or scorns them, or makes fine distinctions in order to neutralize and so reject them.”
― Francis Bacon, The New Organon

“...the specious meditations, speculations, and theories of mankind are but a kind of insanity, only there is no one to stand by and observe it.”
― Francis Bacon, Novum Organum

“man's sense is falsely asserted to be the standard of things; on the contrary, all the perceptions both of the senses and the mind bear reference to man and not to the Universe, and the human mind resembles these uneven mirrors which impart their own properties to different objects, from which rays are emitted and distort and disfigure them.”
― Francis Bacon, The New Organon

“Prawdę łatwiej wyłowić z błędów niż z zamętu.”
― Francis Bacon, The New Organon