Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban(s), KC (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution.[1]

Bacon has been called the creator of empiricism. His works established and popularised inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry, often called the Baconian method, or simply the scientific method. His demand for a planned procedure of investigating all things natural marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, much of which still surrounds conceptions of proper methodology today. His dedication probably led to his death, bringing him into a rare historical group of scientists who were killed by their own experiments.

Bacon was knighted in 1603, and created both the Baron Verulam in 1618, and the Viscount St Alban in 1621; as he died without heirs both peerages became extinct upon his death. He famously died of pneumonia contracted while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat.

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Quotes·Quotations by Francis Bacon

Ability

@ Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study. [Francis Bacon, Essays.]

Adversity

@ Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.

Francis Bacon, Essays, Of Adversity (1597).

Advice

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

¶ A sudden, bold, and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.

Arts·Artists

¶ "The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery."

This quote suggests that the purpose of art is not to solve mysteries, but to deepen them, to make us think, feel, and question. It’s a beautiful encapsulation of the power and purpose of art.

Beauty

¶ There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.[1]

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights.

Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's.

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

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Quotes·Quotation by William Shakespeare

Advice

¶ You must take your chance.

Amazons

@ Charles: Stay, stay thy hands! thou art an Amazon
And fightest with the sword of Deborah.
To Joan la Pucelle (Joan of Arc), after fighting and losing to her.
Henry VI, Part I, Act I, scene ii.

Appearance

¶ All hoods make not monks. [Henry VIII (1613), Act III, scene 1, line 23.]

¶ All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told;
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold. [Act II, scene 7, line 65.]

Farewell

¶ This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

Friend·Friendship

¶ I am not of that feather to shake off my friend when he must need me. I do know him a gentleman that well deserves a help: Which he shall have. [Timon of Athens]

Life

¶ To be, or not to be, that is the question.

From the play “Hamlet,” this is one of the most famous lines in English literature. It reflects on the nature of existence and the human condition, questioning the value of life and the struggle against suffering.

Spring

¶ O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day;
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away.

Truth

¶ Truth is truth to the end of reckoning.

Winter

¶ Blow, blow, thou winter wind. Thou art not so unkind, As man's ingratitude.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare