Giordano Bruno Quotes

In space there are countless constellations, suns and planets;

we see only the suns because they give light; the planets remain invisible, for they are small and dark. There are also numberless earths circling around their suns.

God is infinite, so His universe must be too.

Thus is the excellence of God magnified and the greatness of His kingdom made manifest; He is glorified not in one, but in countless suns; not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand thousand, I say in an infinity of worlds.

There is no absolute up or down, as Aristotle taught;

no absolute position in space; but the position of a body is relative to that of other bodies. Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer is always at the center of things.

I beg you, reject antiquity, tradition, faith, and authority! Let us begin anew by doubting everything we assume has been proven!

The Divine Light is always in man, presenting itself to the senses and to the comprehension, but man rejects it.

The fools of the world have been those who have established religions, ceremonies, laws, faith, rule of life.

With luck on your side, you can do without brains.

All things are in the Universe, and the universe is in all things: we in it, and it in us; in this way everything concurs in a perfect unity.

What can be more stupid than to be in pain about future things and absent ones which at present are not felt?

It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.

When we consider the being and substance of that universe in which we are immutably set, we shall discover that neither we ourselves nor any substance doth suffer death. For nothing is in fact diminished in its substance, but all things, wandering through infinite space, undergo change of aspect.

I have held and hold souls to be immortal.

... Speaking as a Catholic, they do not pass from body to body, but go to paradise, purgatory or hell. But I have reasoned deeply, and, speaking as a philosopher, since the soul is not found without body and yet is not body, it may be in one body or in another, and pass from body to body.

The beginning, middle, and end of the birth, growth, and perfection of whatever we behold is from contraries, by contraries, and to contraries; and whatever contrariety is, there is action and reaction, there is motion, diversity, multitude, and order, there are degrees, succession and vicissitude.

What you receive from others is a testimony to their virtue;

but all that you do for others is the sign and clear indication of your own.

Those wise men knew God to be in things, and Divinity to be latent in Nature, working and glowing differently in different subjects and succeeding through diverse physical forms, in certain arrangements, in making them participants in her, I say, in her being, in her life and intellect.

Magicians can do more by means of faith than physicians by the truth.

Divine love does not weigh down, nor carry his servant captive and enslaved to the lowest depths, but raises him, supports him and magnifies him above all liberty whatsoever.

The soul is not the body and it may be in one body or in another, and pass from body to body.

It may be you fear more to deliver judgment upon me than I fear judgment.

I do not know when, but I know that many have come in this century to develop arts and sciences, sow the seeds of a new culture that will flourish, unexpected, sudden, just when the power is deluded into believing they have won.

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.

I have declared infinite worlds to exist beside this our earth.

It would not be worthy of God to manifest Himself in less than an infinite universe.

The stars in the sky are really other suns like our own, around which orbit other planets. (paraphrase)

Divinity reveals herself in all things. Everything has Divinity latent within itself. For she enfolds and imparts herself even unto the smallest beings, and from the smallest beings, according to their capacity. Without her presence nothing would have being, because she is the essence of the existence of the first unto the last being.

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.

For nature is not merely present , but is implanted within things, distant from none... 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 .

Our bodily eye findeth never an end, but is vanquished by the immensity of space.

The one infinite is perfect , in simplicity , of itself, absolutely, nor can aught be greater or better, This is the one Whole, God , universal Nature , occupying all space, of whom naught but infinity can give the perfect image or semblance.

There is in the universe neither center nor circumference.

The infinity of All ever bringing forth anew, and even as infinite space is around us, so is infinite potentiality, capacity, reception, malleability, matter.

This whole which is visible in different ways in bodies, as far as formation, constitution, appearance, colors and other properties and common qualities, is none other than the diverse face of the same substance a changeable, mobile face, subject to decay, of an immobile, permanent and eternal being.

We delight in one knowable thing, which comprehends all that is knowable; in one apprehensible, which draws together all that can be apprehended; in a single being that includes all, above all in the one which is itself the all.

There is a single general space, a single vast immensity which we may freely call void: in it are unnumerable globes like this on which we live and grow, this space we declare to be infinite, since neither reason, convenience, sense-perception nor nature assign to it a limit.

Desire urges me on, while fear bridals me.

Beautiful sights arouse feelings of love, and contrary sights bring feelings of disgrace and hate. And the emotions of the soul and spirit bring something additional to the body itself, which exists under the control of the soul and the direction of the spirit.

Of the eternal incorporeal substance nothing is changed, is formed or deformed, but there always remains only that thing which cannot be a subject of dissolution, since it is not possible that it be a subject of composition, and therefore, either of itself or by accident, it cannot be said to die.

Time is the father of truth, its mother is our mind.

The single spirit doth simultaneously temper the whole together; this is the single soul of all things; all are filled with God .

Make then your forecasts, my lords Astrologers, with your slavish physicians, by means of those astrolabes with which you seek to discern the fantastic nine moving spheres; in these you finally imprison your own minds, so that you appear to me but as parrots in a cage, while I watch you dancing up and down, turning and hopping within those circles.

The soul, in its power, is present in some way in the entire universe, because it apprehends substances which are not included in the body in which it lives, although they are related to it.

In this infinite space is placed our universe (whether by chance, by necessity, or by providence I do not now consider).

When the end comes, you will be esteemed by the world and rewarded by God, not because you have won the love and respect of the princes of the earth, however powerful, but rather for having loved, defended and cherished one such as I. What you receive from others is a testimony to their virtue; but all that you do for others is the sign and clear indication of your own.

Anything we take in the Universe, because it has in itself that which is All in All, includes in its own way, the entire soul of the world, which is entirely in any part of it.

The gems of philosophy are not less precious because they are not understood.

Why, I say, do so few understand and apprehend the internal power?... He who in himself sees all things, is all things.

It is unity that doth enchant me. By her power I am free though thrall, happy in sorrow, rich in poverty, and quick even in death.

You explain right well, and you shew that you understand argument and are not a mere sophist since you accept that which cannot be denied.

All things are in all.

The universe is then one, infinite, immobile. It is not capable of comprehension and therefore is endless and limitless, and to that extent infinite and indeterminable, and consequently immobilizable..