Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

This line comes from Francis Bacon’s essay “Of Studies,” first published in 1597 and later revised for expanded editions (notably 1612 and 1625). In the essay Bacon offers a pragmatic, Renaissance-humanist account of why people read and how different kinds of learning shape character and capacity. Writing as a statesman and philosopher concerned with education for public life, Bacon classifies fields of study by the habits of mind they cultivate—wisdom for judgment, wit for invention, subtlety for analysis, depth for inquiry, gravity for ethics, and argumentative power for civic and forensic disputation.

Bacon treats study as formative training rather than mere accumulation of facts. Each discipline, he suggests, exercises a distinct faculty: history enlarges practical judgment through examples; poetry sharpens imaginative agility; mathematics disciplines precision and fine distinctions; natural philosophy (science) encourages probing into causes; moral philosophy steadies seriousness about conduct; and logic and rhetoric equip one to argue and persuade. The sentence implies an ideal of balanced learning: a well-made mind draws on multiple kinds of reading, because public and private life demand different intellectual virtues—discernment, creativity, rigor, depth, ethical weight, and persuasive competence.

“Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.”