A Quote by Francis Bacon

The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding.

Francis Bacon

Quote Topics

Choice Ill Understanding Unfit Wonderfully Words

Quote Author

Francis Bacon
English - Philosopher
January 22, 1561 - April 9, 1626

It is by discourse that men associate, and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obsesses the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into innumerable and inane controversies and fancies.

Francis Bacon

But the idols of the Market Place are the most troublesome of all: idols which have crept into the understanding through their alliances with words and names. For men believe that their reason governs words. But words turn and twist the understanding. This it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences inactive. Words are mostly cut to the common fashion and draw the distinctions which are most obvious to the common understanding. Whenever an understanding of greater acuteness or more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the true distinctions of nature, words complain.

Francis Bacon

Scientists often invent words to fill the holes in their understanding.These words are meant as conveniences until real understanding can be found. ... Words such as dimension and field and infinity ... are not descriptions of reality, yet we accept them as such because everyone is sure someone else knows what the words mean.

Scott Adams

The dictionary is like a time capsule of all of human thinking ever since words began to be written down. And exploring where words have come from can increase your understanding of the words themselves and expand your understanding of how to use the words, and all of this change happens in your thinking when you read the words.

Andrew Clements

I really can't answer that off the top of my head, my favorite movies. Each one individually was wonderfully made, wonderfully directed, wonderfully written, wonderfully acted, and each one was entirely different.I like romantic movies. I sort of go for the older movies.

Debbie Reynolds

The good or ill hap of a good or ill life, is the good or ill choice of a good or ill wife.

Benjamin Franklin

Hush! Check those words. Do not cure ill with ill and make your pain still heavier than it is.

Sophocles

My God, Donald Trump is unfit! He's ill-tempered, he's unsuited, he is not qualified, he's unsuited to be president.

Barack Obama

Modesty and diffidence make a man unfit for public affairs; they also make him unfit for brothels.

Walter Savage Landor

Over-population is a phenomenon connected with the survival of the unfit, and it is a mechanism which has created conditions favourable to the survival of the unfit and the elimination of the fit.

William Ralph Inge

The human language, as precise as it is with its thousands of words, can still be so wonderfully vague.

Garth Stein

In ability choice education finance majorities people understanding voting A lot of voters always cast their ballot for the candidate who seems to them to be one of the people. That means he must have the same superstitions, the same unbalanced prejudices, and the same lack of understanding of public finances that are characteristic of the majority. A better choice would be a candidate who has a closer understanding and a better education than the majority. Too much voting is based on affability rather than on ability.

William Feather

With this book in my hands, reading aloud to my friends, questioning them, explaining to them, I was made clearly to understand that I had no friends, that I was alone in the world. Because in not understanding the meaning of the words, neither I nor my friends, one thing became very clear and that was that there were ways of not understanding and that the difference between the non-understanding of one individual and the non-understanding of another created a world of terra firma even more solid than differences of understanding.

Henry Miller

Actually, the language in Shakespeare is wonderfully musical. You need to hear the music to connect with the words.

Mandy Patinkin

The fact that a former senator and secretary of state claimed not to know what the letter "C" means is just one more example why she is totally unfit to hold the office of president. Totally unfit.