Who is credited with using the famous quote, "Knowledge is power"?

The famous phrase, "Knowledge is power" is attributed to Sir Francis Bacon. The phrase "scientia potentia est" (or "scientia est potentia" or also "scientia potestas est") is a Latin aphorism meaning "knowledge is power". Bacon is said to have used the Latin words or phrase in his writings.

It is believed that Bacon coined the equation, “knowledge itself is power” (“ipsa scientia potestas est"), in 1597. Since then it has been rephrased in a wide variety of contexts from Thomas Hobbes to Michel Foucault. These men, especially those like Bacon and Pierre Bourdieu (a French sociologist, anthropologist, philosopher and public intellectual) seem to agree that power and knowledge are most clearly seen in the creation and self-reproduction of a professional class of experts in science and halls of higher education. Their chief interest is to control official institutions of learning.

Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was a leading figure in natural philosophy and the field of science. In the period of transition from the Renaissance to the early modern era, he was a lawyer, member of Parliament, and the Queen's Counsel, England. He wrote on questions of law, the state and religion, as well as on contemporary politics. He also published texts in which he speculated on possible conceptions of society, and he pondered questions of ethics ("Essayes") and natural philosophy in his works ("The Advancement of Learning"). He said: "Knowledge, charity, and power can't be kept separate."