Hermes Trismegistus Quotes

80. What is God? The immutable or unalterable good.
81. What is man? An unchangeable evil.

74. The Earth is brutish; the Heaven is reasonable or rational.

55. Nothing in Heaven is enslaved; nothing upon Earth is free.

72. Things upon Earth, do not advantage those in Heaven; but all things in Heaven do profit and advantage all things upon Earth.

Such a person does not cease longing after insatiable appetites, struggling in the darkness without satisfaction. This tortures him and makes the fire grow upon him all the more.

Entre las cosas admirables, sobrepasa a todas las demás el que el hombre haya llegado a conocer y a crear la naturaleza divina.

76. Heaven is the first element.

I long to learn the things that are, and comprehend their nature, and know God. This is, I said, what I desire to hear. ~ Hermes Trismegistus.

I long to learn the things that are, and comprehend their nature, and know God. This is, I said, what I desire to hear.

[16] And after this: “…, o my mind. I love the word also.” Poimandres said: “This is the mystery that has been kept hidden until this very day. When nature made love with the man, she bore a wonder most wondrous. In him he had the nature of the cosmic framework of the seven, who are made of fire and spirit, as I told you, and without delay nature at once gave birth to seven men, androgyne and exalted, whose natures were like those of the seven governors.

Whether the real setting and dating of the Hermetic tradition in late antiquity are, in fact, irrelevant to its reception in the Renaissance is an interesting hermeneutic question that cannot be answered here. In any case and for many other reasons, Yates’s views on the Hermetica became famous for some, notorious for others, especially when, in a 1968 article, she made Hermes a major figure in the preliminaries to the scientific revolution, just two years after J.E. McGuire and P.M. Rattansi had connected Newton’s physics with the ancient theology theme so closely associated with Hermes.