This is a sad story.....
When I was a child, I heard my father said to me: "Knowledge is power, France is bacon."
For more than a decade after that, the second half of this famous quote stuck with me: What does it mean? Why can it be combined with the first half of the sentence? Is there an indescribable connection between knowledge and power, between France and bacon? I could not understand.
However, whenever I mentioned the phrase "Knowledge is power, France is bacon" to adults, they just nodded in agreement. Or when someone says "Knowledge is power" I'd be followed by "France is bacon"...but no one ever looked at me weirdly and thought I had said something weird, in stead just thoughtfully agreed.
I also especially asked a teacher what the phrase "Knowledge is power, France is bacon" means, but the answer I got was a ten-minute explanation of "Knowledge is power", which didn't touch on anything at all about " France is bacon". When I timidly reminded the teacher with the sentence: "France is bacon?" . He only said "That's right." I was only twelve years old and didn't have the courage and confidence to ask any further questions.
I was desperate.
From that moment, I knew that I would never understand the peculiar meaning behind this enigmatic statement, and I gave up the pursuit, just treating it as a mystery that I could talk about without thinking about its meaning. I didn't realize what was going on until I stumbled across this phrase in a book years later.
"Knowledge is power, Francis Bacon"
At that moment, the penny drops
