Scientia potentia est phrase ""sapientia est potentia"" is often translated as "wisdom is power". The earliest documented occurrence of the phrase "Knowledge is power" is from Imam Ali (599-661 CE), as recorded in the tenth-century book Nahj Al-Balagha (originally in Arabic). He said: Another account of this concept is found in the Shahnameh by the Persian poet Ferdowsi (940–1020 CE) who wrote: "Capable is he who is wise" (in Persian: توانا بود هر که دانا بود). This hemistich is translated to English as "knowledge is power" or "One who has wisdom is powerful". A proverb in practically the same wording is found in
Scientia potentia est knowing and the power of working and acting, the opposite of what is assumed when the maxim is taken out of context. Indeed, the quotation has become a cliche. In another place, Bacon wrote, "Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule." Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his essay "Old Age", included in the collection "Society and Solitude" (1870): After the 1871, unification of Germany, ""Wissen