Great Throughts Treasury

"There is one Mind. It is absolutely omnipresent, giving mentality to all things."

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

"It is manifest... that every soul and spirit hath a certain continuity with the spirit of the universe, so that it must be understood to exist and to be included not only there where it liveth and feeleth, but it is also by its essence and substance diffused throughout immensity."

"I understand Being in all and over all, as there is nothing without participation in Being, and there is no being without Essence. Thus nothing can be free of the Divine Presence."

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

"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."

"Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer is always at the centre of things."

"The universe comprises all being in a totality; for nothing that exists is outside or beyond infinite being, as the latter has no outside or beyond."

"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."

"The fools of the world have been those who have established religions, ceremonies, laws, faith, rule of life. The greatest asses of the world are those who, lacking all understanding and instruction, and void of all civil life and custom, rot in perpetual pedantry; those who by the grace of heaven would reform obscure and corrupted faith, salve the cruelties of perverted religion and remove abuse of superstitions, mending the rents in their vesture. It is not they who indulge impious curiosity or who are ever seeking the secrets of nature, and reckoning the courses of the stars. Observe whether they have been busy with the secret causes of things, or if they have condoned the destruction of kingdoms, the dispersion of peoples, fires, blood, ruin or extermination; whether they seek the destruction of the whole world that it may belong to them: in order that the poor soul may be saved, that an edifice may be raised in heaven, that treasure may be laid up in that blessed land, caring naught for fame, profit or glory in this frail and uncertain life, but only for that other most certain and eternal life."

"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."

"All things are in all."

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

"Our philosophy... reduceth to a single origin and relateth to a single end, and maketh contraries to coincide so that there is one primal foundation both of origin and of end. From this coincidence of contraries, we deduce that ultimately it is divinely true that contraries are within contraries; wherefore it is not difficult to compass the knowledge that each thing is within every other."

"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."

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

"A stone is not carved by a drop's falling twice, but by many times; so too does a human not become wise by reading two, but by many books."

"Affection is in the state of virtue when it establishes itself in the mean, departing from the one and the other extreme; when it tends to be extremes, inclining to one or the other of them, it falls short of virtue so much that it becomes a double vice; and vice consists in this, that a thing deviates from its own nature whose perfection consists in unity; and the composition of virtue is at the point where the contraries unite."

"After it hath been seen how the obstinate and the ignorant of evil disposition are accustomed to dispute, it will further be shewn how disputes are wont to conclude; although others are so wary that without losing their composure, but with a sneer, a smile, a certain discreet malice, that which they have not succeeded in proving by argument — nor indeed can it be understood by themselves — nevertheless by these tricks of courteous disdain they pretend to have proven, endeavouring not only to conceal their own patently obvious ignorance but to cast it on to the back of their adversary. For 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."

"All loves (if they are heroic, and not purely animal, the physical means by which those enslaved by nature are called to procreation) have divinity for their object and tend to the divine beauty, a beauty which first communicates itself to the souls and is resplendent in them, and then, from the soul, or better still, through the souls, is communicated to the body."

"All the intelligences are represented by the moon, inasmuch as they participate in potentiality and act, and inasmuch, I say, as they have the light unrefined and according to participation because they receive it from another. And these intelligences do not have the light of themselves and by their nature but have it by the view of the sun, the first intelligence, pure and absolute light, pure and absolute act."

"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."

"And just as by its essence the mind is in God who is its life, similarly by its intellectual operation and the consequent operation of the will, the mind refers itself to its own light and its beatific object."

"And many we love because they are beautiful, but we do not wish them well because they do not merit it; and among those things he deems his beloved does not merit, the first is the love he as for her."

"Animals and plants are living effects of Nature; this Nature... is none other than God in things... Whence all of God is in all things... Think thus, of the sun in the crocus, in the narcissus, in the heliotrope, in the rooster, in the lion…. To the extent that one communicates with Nature, so one ascends to Divinity through Nature."

"And penetrate ever further through the eternal field."

"As time is one and yet is divided into diverse temporal subjects, so the instant is one in all the diverse parts of time. As I am the same one who was, who exists now, and who will exist in the future, so am I the same person here at home, in church, in the fields, and everywhere."

"Because it is impossible to design the whole sun at each point in the circle, two circles have been drawn here. One circle is drawn around the sun to show that the sun moves itself through it. The other circle is drawn inside the sun, to show that the sun is moved by it."

"Because the soul always desires to love more than it loves and to see more than it sees. Moreover the soul desires that this species which the sight has engendered in it should not become attenuated, enfeebled, or lost."

"Before anything else the One must exist eternally; from his power derives everything that always is or will ever be. He is the Eternal and embraces all times. He knows profoundly all events and He himself is everything. He creates everything beyond any beginning of time and beyond any limit of place and space. He is not subject to any numerical law, or to any law of measure or order. He himself is law, number, measure, limit without limit, end without end, act without form."

"Behold in the candle borne by this Chandler, to whom I give birth, that which shall clarify certain shadows of ideas ... I need not instruct you of my belief. Time gives all and takes all away; everything changes but nothing perishes. One only is immutable, eternal and ever endures, one and the same with itself. With this philosophy my spirit grows, my mind expands. Whereof, however obscure the night may be, I await the daybreak, and they who dwell in day look for night ... Rejoice therefore, and keep whole, if you can, and return love for love."

"Cause, Principle, and One eternal from whom being, life, and movement are suspended, and which extends itself in length, breadth, and depth, to whatever is in Heaven, on Earth, and Hell; with sense, with reason, with mind, I discern, that there is no act, measure, nor calculation, which can comprehend that force, that vastness and that number, which exceeds whatever is inferior, middle, and highest; blind error, avaricious time, adverse fortune, deaf envy, vile madness, jealous iniquity, crude heart, perverse spirit, insane audacity, will not be sufficient to obscure the air for me, will not place the veil before my eyes, will never bring it about that I shall not"

"Cognition can never be perfect to the extent that it shall be able to understand the highest object; but only to the extent that our intellect has the power to understand this object. It suffices that in this state of ours and in any other our intellect may perceive be divine beauty to the degree that it extends the horizon of its vision."

"Desire urges me on, while fear bridals me."

"Everything that makes diversity of kinds, of species, differences, properties… everything that consists in generation, decay, alteration and change is not an entity, but a condition and circumstance of entity and being, which is one, infinite, immobile, subject, matter, life, death, truth, lies, good and evil."

"For they dispute not in order to find or even to seek Truth, but for victory ... Such persons should be avoided by all who have not a good breastplate of patience. Giordano Bruno Time is the father of truth, its mother is our mind."

"Even to have come forth is something, since I see that being able to conquer is placed in the hands of fate. However, there was in me, whatever I was able to do, that which no future century will deny to be mine, that which a victor could have for his own: Not to have feared to die, not to have yielded to any equal in firmness of nature, and to have preferred a courageous death to a noncombatant life."

"Contemplate my beautiful Sun."

"For this evil is not an evil absolute; it is an absolute evil only with respect to what is held good according to a certain opinion. And this opinion is as fallacious as the condiment old Saturn used (for his dinner), when he devoured his own sons."

"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."

"He was a man of grave and cultivated mind, of rapid and mature intelligence; inferior to no preceding astronomer, unless in order of succession and time ; a man, who in natural ability was far superior to Ptolemy, Hipparchus, Eudoxus, and all those others who followed in their footsteps. What he was, he became through having liberated himself from certain false axioms of the common and vulgar philosophy — I will not say blindness. Nevertheless, he did not depart far from them ; because, studying mathematics rather than Nature, he failed to penetrate and dig deep enough altogether to cut away the roots of incongruous and vain principles, and thus, removing perfectly all opposing difficulties, free himself and others from so many empty investigations into things obvious and unchangeable. In spite of all this, who can sufficiently praise the magnanimity of this German, who, having little regard to the foolish multitude, stood firm against the torrent of contrary opinion, and, although well-nigh unarmed with living arguments, resuming those rusty and neglected fragments which antiquity had transmitted to him, polished, repaired, and put them together with reasonings more mathematical than philosophical ; and so rendered that cause formerly contemned and contemptible, honourable, estimable, more probable than its rival, and certainly convenient and expeditious for purposes of theory and calculation? Thus this Teuton, although with means insufficient to vanquish, overthrow, and suppress falsehood, as well as resist it, nevertheless resolutely determined in his own mind, and openly confessed this final and necessary conclusion : that it is more possible that this globe should move with regard to the universe, than that the innumerable multitude of bodies, many of which are known to be greater and more magnificent than our earth, should be compelled, in spite of Nature and reason, which, by means of motions evident to the senses, proclaim the contrary, to acknowledge this globe as the centre and base of their revolutions and influences. Who then will be so churlish and discourteous towards the efforts of this man, as to cover with oblivion all he has done, by being ordained of the Gods as an Aurora — which was to precede the rising of this Sun of the true, ancient philosophy, buried during so many centuries in the tenebrous caverns of blind, malignant, froward, envious ignorance; and, taking note only of what he failed to accomplish, rank him amongst the number of the herded multitude, which discourses, guides itself, precipitates to destruction, according to the oral sense of a brutal and ignoble belief, rather than amongst those who, by the use of rightreason, have been able to rise up, and resume the true course under the faithful guidance of the eye of divine intelligence."

"He says in purple, alabaster and gold, meaning the purple of divine power, the gold of divine wisdom, the alabaster of divine beauty, in the contemplation of which the Pythagoreans, Chaldeans, Platonists, and others attempt to rise as best they can. The great hunter sees: he as understood as much as he can, and he himself becomes the prey; that is to say, this hunter set out for prey and became himself the prey through the operation of his intellect whereby he converted the apprehended objects into himself."

"He tells of his intense pain, he laments of his love certainly not because he loves (for new no lover really dislikes loving) but because he loves unhappily and has submitted to the arrows which are the rays of those eyes, which, accordingly as they express disdain and refusal, or on the contrary as they express benevolence and favor, become the portals which lead to heaven, or, on the other hand, to hell."

"Here am I miserable, deprived of a heart, abandoned by my thoughts, bereft of the hope I had entirely placed in them. Nothing else remains but the sense of my poverty, unhappiness, and wretchedness. And what am I not deprived of this sense too? Why does death not come to my aid, now that I am deprived of life? For what purpose are my natural faculties deprived of their power?"

"Here the sorrowing soul, not in real discontent, but in the passion of a certain amorous martyrdom, speaks as though addressing its discourse to those who are similarly impassioned. It has dismissed its heart, as it were, against its will, for the heart directs its course toward an impossible goal, extends itself where it cannot reach and would embrace what it cannot grasp; and the more the heart is estranged from the soul, the more does it enkindle itself toward the infinite."

"Heroic love is the property of those superior natures who are called insane (insano) not because they do notknow, but because they over-know (soprasanno)."

"I await your sentence with less fear than you pass it. The time will come when all will see what I see."

"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 pray you, magnificent Sir, do not trouble yourself to return to us, but await our coming to you."