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
Alea iacta est "a point of no return"; for example: Alea iacta est Caesar was said to have borrowed the phrase from Menander, his favourite Greek writer of comedy; the phrase appears in "Ἀρρηφόρος" (transliterated as "Arrephoros") (or possibly "The Flute-Girl"), as quoted in "Deipnosophistae" , paragraph 8. Plutarch reports that these words were said in Greek: Suetonius, a contemporary of Plutarch writing in Latin, reports a similar phrase. Lewis and Short, citing Casaubon and Ruhnk, suggest that the text of Suetonius should read "iacta alea esto" (reading the imperative "esto" instead of "est"), which they translate as "Let the die be cast!",