Francis Bacon

The Idols of the 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.

The Idols of the Cave are the idols of the individual man. For everyone (besides the errors common to human nature in general) has a cave or den of his own, which refracts and discolors the light of nature; owing either to his own proper and peculiar constitution, or to his education and conversation with others, or to the books he reads, and the authority of those whom he esteems and admires, or to the differences of impressions, accordingly as they happen to be received in a mind preoccupied and predisposed or in a mind indifferent and settled, or the like. So that the spirit of man (according as it is meted out to different individuals) is a thing variable and full of perturbation, and governed as it were by chance.

The Idols of the Market Place are the most troublesome of all: idols which have crept into the understanding through the alliances of words and names. For men believe that their reason governs words, but it is also true that words react on the understanding; and this it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive. Words are generally formed and imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar, and draw lines of division corresponding to popular distinctions. And when a more acute understanding or more diligent observation strives to introduce truer divisions, words stand in the way, and resist the innovation.

The Idols of the Theatre are not innate, nor do they steal into the understanding from the secret channels of the mind, but are plainly impressed and received from the various dogmas of philosophies, and also from bad rules of demonstration. For so many are the modes of building systems of philosophy, and so various and divergent the ways of collecting and digesting the things which conduce to them, that they are not only several, but also, for the most part, discordant.

For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and unruffled mirror, but is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not with judgment and industry regulated and cleared.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand 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.

For as the eye of the mind, through the too great subtilty of the object, may be dulled and not able to perceive it, so through the too great subtilty of the medium it may be deceived and not able to judge aright.

The method of discovery and proof, whether by the senses or by the mind, is one and the same; and it is only by a right method of discovery that we can hope for a right method of proof.

For the mind, when it is once possessed with an opinion, draws all things else to confirm and agree with it.

Men ought to know that in the theatre of human life it is only for Gods and angels to be spectators.

Certainly, there be, that delight in giddiness; and count it a bondage, to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting.

He that studieth revenge, keepeth his own wounds green; which otherwise would heal, and do well.

Discretion of speech is more than eloquence.

For in the mind of man, there is a natural evil, a natural darkness, which, unless it be purged and illuminated, will ever be prone to error.

The root of all evil is the love of money.

It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.

For the sense by itself is a thing infirm and erring.

The greatest error of all is to think that a man has no control over his thoughts.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.