Scientia potentia est Scientia potentia est The phrase "scientia potentia est"" (or "scientia est potentia" or also "scientia potestas est")" is a Latin aphorism meaning "knowledge is power". It is commonly attributed to Sir Francis Bacon, although there is no known occurrence of this precise phrase in Bacon's English or Latin writings. However, the expression ""ipsa scientia potestas est"" ('knowledge itself is power') occurs in Bacon's "Meditationes Sacrae" (1597). The exact phrase ""scientia potentia est"" was written for the first time in the 1668 version of the work "Leviathan" by Thomas Hobbes, who was secretary to Bacon as a young man. The related
Ite, missa est the assembly] is dismissed". However, according to Fortescue (1910), the word "missa" as used in this phrase is not the feminine participle (Classical Latin "missa"), but rather a Late Latin form of what would be "missio" in classical Latin, meaning "dismissal", for a translation of "Go, the dismissal is made". Chupungco (1999) noted that "some persons have attempted" to "sublimate" the straightforward meaning of the phrase into an interpretation of "missio" "dismissal" as "mission" (as in, "go and be a missionary"), but judges this interpretation as "without foundation". The connection between the meaning "dismissal" and the 'deeper' meaning of "mission"