Giordano Bruno Quotes

The wise soul feareth not death; rather she sometimes striveth for death, she goeth beyond to meet her. Yet eternity maintaineth her substance throughout time, immensity throughout space, universal form throughout motion.

A constellation of the most pedantic, obstinate ignorance and presumption, mixed with a kind of rustic incivility, which would try the patience of Job.

Philotheo. No corporeal sense can perceive the infinite. None of our senses could be expected to furnish this conclusion; for the infinite cannot be the object of sense-perception; therefore he who demandeth to obtain this knowledge through the senses is like unto one who would desire to see with his eyes both substance and essence. And he who would deny the existence of a thing merely because it cannot be apprehended by the senses, nor is visible, would presently be led to the denial of his own substance and being. Wherefore there must be some measure in the demand for evidence from our sense-perception, for this we can accept only in regard to sensible objects, and even there it is not above all suspicion unless it cometh before the court aided by good judgement. It is the part of the intellect to judge, yielding due weight to factors absent and separated by distance of time and by space intervals. And in this matter our sense-perception doth suffice us and doth yield us adequate testimony, since it is unable to gainsay us; moreover it advertiseth and confesseth his own feebleness and inadequacy by the impression it giveth us of a finite horizon, an impression moreover which is ever changing. Since then we have experience that sense-perception deceiveth us concerning the surface of this globe on which we live, much more should we hold suspect the impression it giveth us of a limit to the starry sphere.

Its a poor mind that would think with the multitude, because it is multitude. Truth is not altered by the opinions of the vulgar, or by confirmations of the many

Thirdly, it will be propounded that every star hath motion even as hath our own and those others which are so near to us that we can sensibly perceive the differences in their orbits and in their motions: but those suns, bodies in which fire doth predominate, move differently to the earths in which water predominateth; thus may be understood whence is derived the light diffused by stars, of which some glow of themselves and others by reflection.

We find that everything that makes up difference and number is pure accident, pure show, pure constitution. Every production, of whatever kind, is an alteration, but the substance remains always the same, because it is only one, one divine immortal being.

Wherefore he who denieth infinite result denieth also infinite power.

Desire urges me on, while fear bridals me.

For nature is not merely present, but is implanted within things, distant from none; naught is distant from her except the false, and that which existed never and nowhere—nullity. And while the outer face of things changeth so greatly, there flourisheth the origin of being more intimately within all things than they themselves. The fount of all kinds, Mind, God, Being, One, Truth, Destiny, Reason, Order.

They dispute not in order to find or even to seek Truth, but for victory, and to appear the more learned and strenuous upholders of a contrary opinion. Such persons should be avoided by all who have not a good breastplate of patience.

Therefore the perfect, absolutely and in itself, is one, infinite, which cannot be
greater or better, and that which nothing can be greater or better. This is one, everywhere,
the only God, universal nature, of which nothing can be a perfect image
or reflection, but the infinite.

Why wouldst thou that God should in power, in act and in effect (which in him are identical) be determined as the limit of the convexity of a sphere, rather than that he should be as we may say the undetermined limit of the boundless? The limit I say, without limit, that I may differentiate the one infinity from the other. For He is the whole, comprehensive [26] and complete totality of the infinite, but the universe is the explicit though not the all-comprehensive totality (if indeed we may in any wise use the term totality where there is neither part nor boundary). Therefore the nature of the one doth comprehend boundaries; that of the other is bounded. And this is not the distinction between infinite and finite. The distinction is rather that the one is infinite, while the other doth limit according to the nature of the totality and of the whole being thereof. So that although it is entirely infinite, the infinity thereof is not completely comprehensive, for this would be repugnant to dimensional infinity.

Of the eternal corporeal substance (which is not producible ex nihilo, nor reducible ad nihilum, but rarefiable, condensable, formable, arrangeable, and "fashionable") the composition is dissolved, the complexion is changed, the figure is modified, the being is altered, the fortune is varied, only the elements remaining what they are in substance, that same principle persevering which was always the one material principle, which is the true substance of things, eternal, ingenerable and incorruptible.

Fourteenthly, if infinite active power doth actuate corporeal and dimensional being, this being must necessarily be infinite; otherwise there would be derogation from the nature and dignity both of creator and of creation.

Oh holy asinity! holy ignorance! Holy foolishness and pious devotion! You who alone do more to advance and make souls good Than human ingenuity and study...