Robert Grosseteste Quotes on Nature
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 nature, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Robert Grosseteste:
“Light is the first form of all things.”
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Attributed to Robert Grosseteste:
“Mathematics is the key to natural philosophy.”
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Attributed to Robert Grosseteste:
“All natural things proceed from light.”
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“The consideration of lines, angles and figures is of the greatest utility since it is impossible for natural philosophy to be known without them... All causes of natural effects have to be given through lines, angles and figures, for otherwise it is impossible for the reason why ( propter quid ) to be known in them.”
De Lineas, Anguilis et Figuris ( On Lines, Angles and Figures ) as quoted in Neil Lewis, "Robert Grosseteste" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2007, 2013) citing Baur, Ludwig (ed.) Die Philosophischen Werke des Robert Grosseteste, Bischofs von Lincoln (1912) pp.59–60 -
“Power from natural agents may go by a short line, and then in its activity greater ... But if by a straight line then its action is stronger and better, as Aristotle says in Book V of the Physics, because nature operates in the shortest way possible. But the straight line is the shortest of all, as he says in the same place.”
De Lineas, Anguilis et Figuris as quoted by A.C. Crombie , Robert Groseesteste and the Origins of Experimental Science 1100-1700 (1953) citing Baur, Ludwig (ed.) Die Philosophischen Werke des Robert Grosseteste, Bischofs von Lincoln (1912) -
“Every operation in nature is in the shortest, best ordered, briefest, and best possible way.”
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)