Isaac Israeli Quotes on Knowledge
Isaac Israeli (c.832–c.932) — the Egyptian-born Jewish physician and Neoplatonist philosopher whose long career at the Fatimid court of Kairouan produced the earliest medieval Jewish philosophical works — gave the early medieval Arabic-Jewish philosophical tradition one of its founding statements. The Book of Definitions and the Book of Substances develop a distinctive Neoplatonic synthesis drawing on the Arabic translations of Aristotle, Plotinus (the so-called Theology of Aristotle), and the Procline tradition — with the corresponding analysis of knowledge as the soul’s progressive ascent through the levels of being toward the divine intellect supplying the framework for the broader medieval Jewish philosophical tradition. The framework, transmitted through Latin translations into the Latin scholastic tradition (where Israeli is cited by Aquinas) and through Hebrew translations into the medieval Jewish philosophical-theological tradition, shaped both the early Arabic-Jewish philosophical encounter and the broader transmission of Neoplatonism into the Latin Middle Ages.
Quotes
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Attributed to Isaac Israeli:
“Truth is the correspondence of thought to reality.”
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Attributed to Isaac Israeli:
“Philosophy is the human knowledge of the soul, of the body, and of God.”
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Attributed to Isaac Israeli:
“Wisdom is the highest good attainable by human beings.”
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Attributed to Isaac Israeli:
“Knowledge of the soul is the gateway to knowledge of God.”
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“Candour is the brightest gem of criticism .”
Literary Journals . -
“The wisdom of the wise , and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation .”
Quotation ; since at least 1986 a paraphrased form misattributed to his son Benjamin Disraeli has often been quoted: "The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations. -
“Quotation ; since at least 1986 a paraphrased form misattributed to his son Benjamin Disraeli has often been quoted: "The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.”
The wisdom of the wise , and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation . -
“If the golden gate of preferment is not usually opened to men of real merit, persons of no worth have entered it in a most extraordinary manner.”
Royal Promotions . -
“Modes of Salutation, and Amicable Ceremonies, Observed in Various Nations .”
To bend and prostrate oneself to express sentiments of respect, appears to be a natural motion. -
“The negroes are lovers of ludicrous actions, and hence all their ceremonies seem farcical.”
Modes of Salutation, and Amicable Ceremonies, Observed in Various Nations . -
“Modes of Salutation, and Amicable Ceremonies, Observed in Various Nations .”
The negroes are lovers of ludicrous actions, and hence all their ceremonies seem farcical. -
“Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.”
Of Suppressors and Dilapidators of Manuscripts .