"Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom."
"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."
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Source: 'A Letter of Advice to the Earl of Essex...' (1598) in J. Spedding (ed.) 'The Letters and Life of Francis Bacon' vol. 2 (1862) p. 99
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