Giordano Bruno Quotes on Knowledge
Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), the Italian Dominican-turned-philosopher whose On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (1584), Cause, Principle, and Unity (1584), and Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast (1584) gave the late Renaissance its most audacious philosophical cosmology, defended the case that the universe is infinite in extent and contains an infinity of inhabited worlds — and that genuine knowledge of this cosmos requires a corresponding philosophical method drawing on Lullian mnemonic, Hermetic magical, Cusan dialectical, and Copernican astronomical resources. Bruno's eight-year imprisonment by the Roman Inquisition ended in his being burned at the Campo de' Fiori in February 1600, an event that has shaped the subsequent reception of his work as a martyrology of free inquiry.
Quotes
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Attributed to Giordano Bruno:
“Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
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“Se non è vero, è molto ben trovato.”
If it is not true it is very well invented. | De gli heroici furori (1585) [ The Heroic Furies ; also translated as On Heroic Frenzies ], as quoted in A Book of Quotations, Proverbs and Household Words (1907) edited by Sir William Gurney Benham | Variant translations: If it is not true, it is well conceived. If it is not true, it is a good story. -
“Maiori forsan cum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam.”
Perchance you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it. His famous response to his judges upon his conviction as a heretic, prior to his transfer to the civil authorities for execution. (16 February 1600); as quoted by Gaspar Schopp of Breslau in a letter to Conrad Rittershausen; as translated in Giordano Bruno : His Life and Thought (1950) by Dorothea Waley Singer | Var -
“Variant translations: Perhaps your fear in passing judgment on me is greater than mine in receiving it. It may be you fear more to deliver judgment upon me than I fear judgment. You pronounce sentence upon me with greater fear than I receive it.”
Maiori forsan cum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam.