Salomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion.
Francis BaconRead
The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this-that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that society often overvalues human intellect while neglecting the underlying support systems that enable true understanding.
Francis Bacon critiques the tendency to glorify human intellect and creativity in the sciences, warning that this admiration can overshadow the importance of seeking foundational truths and the tools that genuinely enhance our understanding. He emphasizes that overlooking these fundamental supports leads to a myriad of problems within scientific inquiry and knowledge acquisition.
In practice
In a lecture on the importance of foundational research, one might use this quote to emphasize the value of understanding the basics.
Salomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion.
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
Great art is always a way of concentrating, reinventing what is called fact, what we know of our existence- a reconcentration… tearing away the veils, the attitudes people acquire of their time and earlier time. Really good artists tear down those veils
Wise men make more opportunities than they find.
Knowledge and human power are synonymous.
From nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations
'Memory.' 'Race.' 'Murder.' That's what they say about me. I am an elegiac poet. I have some historical questions, and I'm grappling with ways to make sense of history; why it still haunts us in our most intimate relationships with each other, but also in our political decisions.
Whoever seeks God as a means toward desired ends will not find God. The mighty God, the maker of heaven and earth, will not be one of many treasures, not even the chief of all treasures. He will be all in all or He will be nothing. God will not be used.
The Gross National Product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America - except whether we are proud to be Americans.
See the brotherhood of all mankind as the highest order of Yogis; conquer your own mind, and conquer the world.
The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenements halls and whispered in the sounds of silence.
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