Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Roger Bacon, scholastic accolade Doctor Mirabilis meaning "Wonderful Teacher"

English Franciscan Philosopher, Educational Reformer, Early Advocate of Scientific Method to study nature through empirical methods

"He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity."

"He of whom many are afraid ought to fear many."

"He that gives good advice builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example builds with one hand and pulls down with the other."

"He that hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief."

"He that studieth revenge keepeth his own wounds green."

"He that will have his son have a respect for him and his orders, must himself have a great reverence for his son."

"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils, for time is the greatest innovator."

"Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral and rhetoric, able to contend."

"Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper."

"Houses are built to live in, not to look on; therefore, let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had."

"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."

"I hold every man a debtor to his profession."

"I would live to study, and not study to live."

"If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world."

"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties."

"If 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."

"If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin with doubts, and are patient in them, we shall end in certainties."

"In charity there is no excess."

"In peace the sons bury their fathers and in war the fathers bury their sons."

"In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior."

"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. So that as tennis is a game of no use in itself, but of great use in respect it maketh a quick eye and a body ready to put itself into all postures; so in the mathematics, that use which is collateral and intervenient is no less worthy than that which is principal and intended."

"It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many to fear."

"It is heaven upon earth to have a man"

"It is the perennial youthfulness of mathematics itself which marks it off with a disconcerting immortality from the other sciences."

"Knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the cause frustrates the effect."

"Knowledge is power. [Knowledge itself is power.]"

"Liberty of Speech inviteth and provoketh liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man"

"Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true."

"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."

"Man seeketh in society comfort, use and protection."

"Mathematics is absolutely necessary and useful to the other sciences."

"Mathematics is the door and key to the sciences."

"Men commonly think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and imbibed opinions, but generally according to custom."

"Money is like muck, not good unless it be spread."

"My name and memory I leave to men"

"Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study."

"Nature is often hidden; sometimes overcome; seldom extinguished."

"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."

"No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of Truth."

"Nothing is to be feared but fear."

"Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it."

"Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing."

"Of great riches there is no real use, except in the distribution; the rest is but conceit."

"Philosophy, when superficially studied, excites doubt; when thoroughly explored, it dispels it."

"Prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue."

"Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and Adversity is not without comforts and hopes."

"Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New."

"Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider."

"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man."

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