Robert Grosseteste Quotes on Knowledge
Robert Grosseteste was an English statesman, scholastic philosopher, theologian, and bishop of Lincoln. This page collects quotes attributed to Robert Grosseteste on the topic of knowledge, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Robert Grosseteste:
“Mathematics is the key to natural philosophy.”
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Attributed to Robert Grosseteste:
“True knowledge is found in the union of revelation and reason.”
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“Commentary on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics , i.17 as quoted by Francis Seymour Stevenson , Robert Grosseteste: Bishop of Lincoln , p. 52 (footnote 2)”
Just as the light of the sun irradiates the organ of vision and things visible, enabling the former to see and the latter to be seen, so too the irradiation of a spiritual light brings the mind into relation with that which is intelligible. -
“This part of optics , when well understood, shows us how we may make things a very long distance off appear as if placed very close, and large near things appear very small, and how we may make small things placed at a distance appear any size we want , so that it may be possible for us to read the smallest letters at incredible distances, or to count sand, or seed, or any sort of minute objects.”
De iride (On the rainbow) Note this prediction of optical scientific instruments like the telescope and microscope, not to be utilized until 250 years later. -
“De iride (On the rainbow) Note this prediction of optical scientific instruments like the telescope and microscope, not to be utilized until 250 years later.”
This part of optics , when well understood, shows us how we may make things a very long distance off appear as if placed very close, and large near things appear very small, and how we may make small things placed at a distance appear any size we want , so that it may be possible for us to read the smallest letters at incredible distances, or to count sand, or seed, or any sort of minute objects. -
“De iride published in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters , IX (1912) pp.74-75 as quoted in Carl B. Boyer , The Rainbow: From Myth to Mathematics (1959)”
Every operation in nature is in the shortest, best ordered, briefest, and best possible way.