These are the doubts and motives whose solution involveth only so much doctrine as will suffice to lay bare the intimate and radical errors of the cu… - Giordano Bruno

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These are the doubts and motives whose solution involveth only so much doctrine as will suffice to lay bare the intimate and radical errors of the current philosophy, and the weight and force of our own. Here is the reason wherefore we must not fear that any object may disappear, or any particle veritably melt away or dissolve in space or suffer dismemberment by annihilation. Here too is the reason of the constant change of all things, so that there existeth no evil beyond escape, nor good which is unattainable, since throughout infinite space and throughout endless change all substance remaineth one and the same. From these reflections, if we apply ourselves attentively, we shall see that no strange happening can be dismissed by grief or by fear, and that no good fortune can be advanced by pleasure or hope. Whereby we find the true path to true morality; we will be high minded, despising that which is esteemed by childish minds; and we shall certainly become greater than those whom the blind public doth adore, for we shall attain to true contemplation of the story of nature which is inscribed within ourselves, and we shall follow the divine laws which are engraved upon our hearts. We shall recognize that there is no distinction between flight from here to heaven and from heaven hither, nor between ascent from there hither and from here to there; nor yet is there descent between one and the other. We are not more circumferential to those others than they to us; they are not more central to us than we to them. Just as we do tread our star and are contained in our heaven, so also are they.

Behold us therefore beyond reach of jealousy, liberated from vain anxiety and from foolish concern to covet from afar that great good which we possess close by and at hand. Behold us moreover freed from panic lest others should fall upon us, rather than encouraged in the hope that we may fall upon them. Since the air which sustaineth our globe is as infinite as that which sustainet

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About Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno (1548 – 17 February 1600) was an Italian universalist pantheist monist philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet, who, following an Inquisition for heresy and the denial of several Catholic doctrines, was burned at the stake in Rome, 1600; born Filippo Bruno, in Nola, Italy, he often called himself Il Nolano (The Nolan).

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Native Name: Iordanus Brunus Nolanus
Alternative Names: Filippo Bruno
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Additional quotes by Giordano Bruno

Passing alone to those realms
The object erst of thine exalted thought,
I would rise to infinity: then I would compass the skill
Of industries and arts equal to the objects. [18]
There would I be reborn: there on high I would foster for thee
Thy fair offspring, now that at length cruel
Destiny hath run her whole course
Against the enterprise whereby I was wont to withdraw to thee.
Fly not from me, for I yearn for a nobler refuge
That I may rejoice in thee. And I shall have as guide
A god called blind by the unseeing.
May Heaven deliver thee, and every emanation
Of the great Architect be ever gracious unto thee:
But turn thou not to me unless thou art mine.

Escaped from the narrow murky prison
Where for so many years error held me straitly,
Here I leave the chain that bound me
And the shadow of my fiercely malicious foe
Who can [19] force me no longer to the gloomy dusk of night.
For he who hath overcome the great Python [20]
With whose blood he hath dyed the waters of the sea
Hath put to flight the Fury that pursued me. [21]
To thee I turn, I soar, O my sustaining Voice;
I render thanks to thee, my Sun, my divine Light,
For thou hast summoned me from that horrible torture, [22]
Thou hast led me to a goodlier tabernacle; [23]
Thou hast brought healing to my bruised heart.

Thou art my delight and the warmth of my heart; [24]
Thou makest me without fear of Fate or of Death;
Thou breakest the chains and bars
Whence few come forth free.
Seasons, years, months, days and hours — The children and weapons of Time — and that Court
Where neither steel nor treasure [25] avail
Have secured me from the fury [of the foe].
Henceforth I spread confident wings to space;
I fear no barrier of crystal or of glass;
I cleave the heavens and soar to the infinite.
And while I rise from my own globe to others
And penetrate ever further through the eternal field,
That which others saw from afar, I leave far behind me. [26]

Theophilo. Well said. But you do not answer the pith of the argument. For I do not insist on infinite space, nor is Nature endowed with infinite space for the exaltation of size or of corporeal extent, but rather for the exaltation of corporeal natures and species, because infinite perfection is far better presented in innumerable individuals than in those which are numbered and finite. Needs must indeed that there should be an infinite image of the inaccessible divine countenance and that there should be in this image as infinite members thereof, innumerable worlds, namely, these others that I postulate. But since innumerable grades of perfection must, through corporeal mode, unfold the divine incorporeal perfection, therefore there must be innumerable individuals, those great animals, whereof one is our earth, the divine mother who hath given birth to us, doth nourish us and moreover will receive us back; [19] and to contain these innumerable bodies there is needed an infinite space. Nevertheless it is well that there should be since there can be innumerable worlds similar to our own, even as our world hath achieved and doth achieve existence and it is well that it should exist.

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