Bernardino Telesio Quotes
Bernardino Telesio was an Italian Renaissance natural philosopher and one of the principal architects of the late sixteenth-century reaction against scholastic Aristotelianism. His De Rerum Natura iuxta Propria Principia, On the Nature of Things According to Their Own Principles, argued that nature must be explained by its own internal principles of heat and cold acting on matter, rather than by abstract philosophical categories imposed from outside. The quotes below are attributed to Bernardino Telesio, organized by topic.
Bernardino Telesio on Knowledge
-
Attributed to Bernardino Telesio:
“Sense alone is the source of natural knowledge.”
Bernardino Telesio on Nature
-
Attributed to Bernardino Telesio:
“Nature must be studied according to its own principles, not according to those of philosophy.”
-
Attributed to Bernardino Telesio:
“Heat and cold are the active principles of nature.”
-
Attributed to Bernardino Telesio:
“All natural agents seek their own preservation.”
Bernardino Telesio on Truth
-
Attributed to Bernardino Telesio:
“What we cannot find in things, we should not invent in words.”