Giordano Bruno Quotes on Knowledge

Quotes

• Attributed to Giordano Bruno:

  “Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”

• “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.

• “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”

  Se non è vero, è molto ben trovato.

• “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.

• “As quoted in "Giordano Bruno" by Thomas Davidson , in The Index Vol. VI. No. 36 (4 March 1886), p. 429”

  Since I have spread my wings to purpose high, The more beneath my feet the clouds I see, The more I give the winds my pinions free, Spurning the earth and soaring to the sky .