My life as a Curious Autodidact

For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things (which is the chief point) and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differencies; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture. So I thought my nature had a kind of familiarity and relationship with truth.

— Francis Bacon, “Of the Interpretation of Nature” 1603-4