Averroes Quotes
Averroes, known in Arabic as Ibn Rushd, was a 12th-century Andalusian Arab philosopher, jurist, and physician of the Islamic Golden Age, the most influential medieval commentator on Aristotle. Born in Cordoba and serving as judge in Seville and Cordoba and as physician to the Almohad caliphs, he produced extensive commentaries on Aristotle's works that became the principal medium through which Aristotle was transmitted to the Latin West. The quotes below are attributed to Averroes, organized by topic.
Browse Averroes by topic
Averroes on God
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Attributed to Averroes:
“If reason and revelation appear to disagree, it is the surface meaning of the revealed text that must be reinterpreted.”
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Attributed to Averroes:
“Philosophy is the friend and milk-sister of religion.”
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“The necessary connexion of movement and time is real and time is something the soul (dhihn) constructs in movement.”
As cited in "Being and Language in Averroes' “Tahafut At-Tahafut” (2003) by Massimo Campanini -
“Philosophers do not claim that God does not know particulars ; they rather claim that He does not know them the way humans do. God knows particulars as their Creator whereas humans know them as a privileged creations of God might know them.”
Attributed to Averroes in Voices of Islam: Voices of change (2007) by Vincent J. Cornell, p. 35 -
“The Law teaches that the universe was invented and created by God , and that it did not come into being by chance or by itself.”
Part 1: The Creation of the Universe; Opening sentence -
“The Asharites have expressed a very peculiar opinion, both with regard to reason and religion; about this problem they have explained it in a way in which religion has not, but have adopted quite an opposite method.”
On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy | Part 4: Divine Justice and Injustice; Opening sentence
Averroes on Knowledge
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“Knowledge is the conformity of the object and the intellect.”
Attributed to Averroes, in: John Bartlett (1968) Familiar Quotations . p. 155 -
Attributed to Averroes:
“The intellect is no other than the perception of things by their causes.”
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Attributed to Averroes:
“Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to hatred, and hatred leads to violence.”
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“Averroes, Ralph Lerner (1974) Averroes On Plato's Republic . p. xxiv”
There is no city that is truly one other than this city that we [anahnti] are involved in bringing forth. -
“Averroës, Charles Edwin Butterworth (1977) Averroës' Three Short Commentaries on Aristotle's "Topics," . p. 92”
[In the introduction to his Middle Commentary on Aristotle 's Topics, Averroes said] This art has three parts. The first part sets forth the speeches from which dialectical conversation is composed — i.e., its parts, and the parts of its parts on to its simplest components. This part is found in the first treatise on Aristotle's book. The second part sets forth the topics from which syllogisms are -
“Attributed to Averroes, in: John Bartlett (1968) Familiar Quotations . p. 155”
Knowledge is the conformity of the object and the intellect. -
“The double meaning has been given to suit people's diverse intelligence. The apparent contradictions are meant to stimulate the learned to deeper study.”
The Decisive Treatise | Ch 2 -
“On the whole, a man who denies the existence of the effects arranged according to the causes in the question of arts , or whose wisdom cannot understand it, then he has no knowledge of the art of its Maker.”
On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy
Averroes on Life
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“The texts about the future life fall into, since demonstrative scholars do not agree whether to take them in their apparent meaning or interpret them allegorically. Either is permissible. But it is inexcusable to deny the fact of a future life altogether.”
The Decisive Treatise | Ch 2. 44
Averroes on Mind
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“It is quite clear to you that all the people see that lower kinds of creation could have been made in a different way from that in which they really are, and as they see this lower degree in many things they think that they must have been made by chance .”
On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy
Averroes on Nature
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“Part 1: The Creation of the Universe; Opening sentence”
The Law teaches that the universe was invented and created by God , and that it did not come into being by chance or by itself.
Averroes on Politics
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“There is no city that is truly one other than this city that we [anahnti] are involved in bringing forth.”
Averroes, Ralph Lerner (1974) Averroes On Plato's Republic . p. xxiv -
“If teleological study of the world is philosophy , and if the Law commands such a study, then the Law commands philosophy.”
The Decisive Treatise | FM 44 as cited in: Oliver Leaman (2002) An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy , p. 179
Averroes on Time
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“Come the Day of Judgment , some believe that the body will be different from our present body. This is only transient, that will be eternal . For this also there are religious arguments.”
On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy | Pat 5: The Day of Judgment; Opening sentence
Averroes on Truth
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Attributed to Averroes:
“Truth does not contradict truth.”
Things actually not said by Averroes
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Averroes but are in fact from someone else. Did Averroes say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Averroes say this? No.
“The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This was declared without citation to have been attributed to Avicenna in A Rationalist Encyclopaedia : A Book of Reference on Religion, Philosophy, Ethics, and Science (1950), by Joseph McCabe , p. 43; it was also later wrongly attributed to Averroes in The Atheist World (1991) by Madalyn Murray O