Giordano Quotes & Sayings

No man, said the Nolan, can be a lover of the true or the good unless he abhors the multitude; and the artist, though he may employ the crowd, is very careful to isolate himself. — James Joyce

There is a single general space, a single vast immensity which we may freely call void: in it are unnumerable globes like this on which we live and grow, this space we declare to be infinite, since neither reason, convenience, sense-perception nor nature assign to it a limit. — Giordano Bruno

Magicians can do more by means of faith than physicians by the truth. — Giordano Bruno

There is no law governing all things. — Giordano Bruno

In the end it happens, in some way you couldn't imagine before. — Paolo Giordano

This whole which is visible in different ways in bodies, as far as formation, constitution, appearance, colors and other properties and common qualities, is none other than the diverse face of the same substance a changeable, mobile face, subject to decay, of an immobile, permanent and eternal being. — Giordano Bruno

The gems of philosophy are not less precious because they are not understood. — Giordano Bruno

The wise soul feareth not death; rather she sometimes striveth for death, she goeth beyond to meet her. Yet eternity maintaineth her substance throughout time, immensity throughout space, universal form throughout motion. — Giordano Bruno

In space there are countless constellations, suns and planets; we see only the suns because they give light; the planets remain invisible, for they are small and dark. There are also numberless earths circling around their suns ... — Giordano Bruno

Good teachers get fired; great teachers, killed--Socrates, Christ, and Giordano Bruno. — Alan W. Powers

You'll get used to it. In the end you won't even notice it anymore," he said.
"How is that possible? It will always be there, right before my eyes."
"Exactly," said Mattia. "Which is precisely why you won't see it anymore. — Paolo Giordano

They weren't smiling and were looking in opposite directions, but it was as if their bodies flowed smoothly into each other's, through their arms and fingers ... There was a shared space between their bodies, the confines of which were not well delineated, from which nothing seemed to be missing and in which the air seemed motionless, undisturbed. — Paolo Giordano

As if moved by a breeze that only she could feel. — Paolo Giordano

I have held and hold souls to be immortal ... Speaking as a Catholic, they do not pass from body to body, but go to paradise, purgatory or hell. But I have reasoned deeply, and, speaking as a philosopher, since the soul is not found without body and yet is not body, it may be in one body or in another, and pass from body to body. — Giordano Bruno

Mattia thought that he and Alice were like that, twin primes, alone and lost, close but not close enough to really touch each other. — Paolo Giordano

We delight in one knowable thing, which comprehends all that is knowable; in one apprehensible, which draws together all that can be apprehended; in a single being that includes all, above all in the one which is itself the all. — Giordano Bruno

Suffering is just part of the great tapestry of life. — Marie Giordano

What can be more stupid than to be in pain about future things and absent ones which at present are not felt? — Giordano Bruno

Time is the father of truth, its mother is our mind. — Giordano Bruno

In England Giordano Bruno had given lectures on the plurality of worlds, and in that country had written, in Italian, his most important works. It added not a little to the exasperation against him, that he was perpetually declaiming against the insincerity, the impostures, of his persecutors - that wherever he went he found skepticism varnished over and concealed by hypocrisy; and that it was not against the belief of men, but against their pretended belief, that he was fighting; that he was struggling with an orthodoxy that had neither morality nor faith. — John William Draper

Nothing is so good that impious and sacrilegious and wicked people cannot contort its proper benefit into evil. — Giordano Bruno

It is unity that doth enchant me. By her power I am free though thrall, happy in sorrow, rich in poverty, and quick even in death. — Giordano Bruno

If the first button of one's coat is wrongly buttoned, all the rest will be crooked. — Giordano Bruno

Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people. — Giordano Bruno

I beg you, reject antiquity, tradition, faith, and authority! Let us begin anew by doubting everything we assume has been proven! — Giordano Bruno

Anything we take in the Universe, because it has in itself that which is All in All, includes in its own way, the entire soul of the world, which is entirely in any part of it. — Giordano Bruno

I need not instruct you of my belief: Time gives all and takes all away ; everything changes but nothing perishes ; One only is immutable, eternal and ever endures, one and the same with itself. With this philosophy my spirit grows, my mind expands. Whereof, how r ever obscure the night may be, I await daybreak, and they who dwell in day look for night Rejoice therefore, and keep whole, if you can, and return love for love. — Giordano Bruno

Unless you make yourself equal to God, you cannot understand God: for the like is not intelligible save to the like. Make yourself grow to a greatness beyond measure, by a bound free yourself from the body; raise yourself above all time, become Eternity; then you will understand God. Believe that nothing is impossible for you, think yourself immortal and capable of understanding all, all arts, all sciences, the nature of every living being. Mount higher than the highest height; descend lower than the lowest depth. Draw into yourself all sensations of everything created, fire and water, dry and moist, imagining that you are everywhere, on earth, in the sea, in the sky, that you are not yet born, in the maternal womb, adolescent, old, dead, beyond death. If you embrace in your thought all things at once, times, places, substances, qualities, quantities, you may understand God. — Giordano Bruno

Our bodily eye findeth never an end, but is vanquished by the immensity of space. — Giordano Bruno

She was sleeping a sleep that wasn't her own and the gadgets to which she was connected didn't make a sound. — Paolo Giordano

Burning the witch Giordano Bruno is one more wound inflicted on Christ's body. — Dejan Stojanovic

She found herself thinking of how it would feel to be safely trapped in his arms, with no more possibility to choose. — Paolo Giordano

There is one basic cause of all effects. — Giordano Bruno

Everything that makes diversity of kinds, of species, differences, properties ... everything that consists in generation, decay, alteration and change is not an entity, but a condition and circumstance of entity and being, which is one, infinite, immobile, subject, matter, life , death , truth , lies , good and evil . — Giordano Bruno

His scars were hidden and safe in her hand. — Paolo Giordano

His wife was disappearing from life like a wet mark drying on a shirt. — Paolo Giordano

Numbers are everywhere," said Denis. "They're always the same, aren't they?"
"Yes."
"But Alice is only here."
"Yes."
"So you've already made up your mind. — Paolo Giordano

Nature is none other than God in things ... Animals and plants are living effects of Nature; Whence all of God is in all things ... Think thus, of the sun in the crocus, in the narcissus, in the heliotrope, in the rooster, in the lion. — Giordano Bruno

In this infinite space is placed our universe (whether by chance, by necessity, or by providence I do not now consider). — Giordano Bruno

As a little girl she had liked looking at her palms against the light, the red peeking through her closed fingers. Once she had shown it to her father and he had kissed her fingertips, pretending to eat them. — Paolo Giordano

She was tired, with that tiredness that only emptiness brings. — Paolo Giordano

For Alice and Mattia, the high school years were an open wound that had seemed so deep that it could never heal. They had passed through them without breathing, he rejecting the world and she feeling rejected by it, and eventually they had noticed that it didn't make all that much difference. They had formed a defective and asymmetrical friendship, made up of long absences and much silence, a clean and empty space where both could come back to breathe when the walls of their school became too close for them to ignore the feeling of suffocation. — Paolo Giordano

From the stereo came music that Alice didn't recognize, but it wasn't there to be listened to, just to complete a perfect scenario; there was nothing casual about it. — Paolo Giordano

With photography Alice liked the actions more than the results. She liked opening the back of the camera and unrolling the new film a couple of inches, just enough to catch it in the runner, and thinking that this empty film would soon become something and not knowing what, taking the first few snaps into the void, aiming, focusing, checking her balance, deciding whether to include or exclude pieces of reality as she saw fit, enlarging, distorting. — Paolo Giordano

Their only plans were to stay there and wait for Sunday afternoon to wear itself out all by itself and it would once again be time to do something necessary, like eating, sleeping, or starting yet another week. — Paolo Giordano

It may be you fear more to deliver judgment upon me than I fear judgment. — Giordano Bruno

When a relationship is severed, it's best if it's severed cleanly and permanently. — Paolo Giordano

That evening, getting up from the table, she had crossed the invisible boundary beyond which things start working by themselves. — Paolo Giordano

Death realigns roles according to a formal order of importance. — Paolo Giordano

Because of the active principle and spirit or universal soul, nothing is so incomplete, defective or imperfect, or, according to common opinion, so completely insignificant that it could not become the source of great events. — Giordano Bruno

The infinity of All ever bringing forth anew, and even as infinite space is around us, so is infinite potentiality, capacity, reception, malleability, matter. — Giordano Bruno

To the perfect, if it be perfect, there is nothing that can be added; therefore, the will is not capable of any other desire, when that which is of the perfect is present with it, highest and best. — Giordano Bruno

Our ... reduceth to a single origin and relateth to a single , and maketh contraries to coincide so that there is one primal foundation both of origin and of end. From this coincidence of contraries, we deduce that ultimately it is divinely true that contraries are within contraries; wherefore it is not difficult to compass the knowledge that each thing is within every other. — Giordano Bruno

Some ancients speculated that the stars were small holes in a black sphere through which distant light shone through. The Italian astronomer Giordano Bruno suggested that they were instead objects like our Sun, just much farther away, perhaps with their own planets and civilizations - this didn't go down too well with the Catholic Church, which had him burned at the stake in 1600. — Max Tegmark

There is a descent from God through the world to animals, and an ascent from animals through the world to God. He is the highest point of the scale, pure act and active power, the purest light. — Giordano Bruno

The single spirit doth simultaneously temper the whole together; this is the single soul of all things; all are filled with God . — Giordano Bruno

Feeling special is the worst kind of cage a person can build for himself. — Paolo Giordano

Although one soul lives in the whole body, and all the body's members are controlled by one soul, still the whole body and the whole soul and the parts of the universe are vivified by a certain total spirit. — Giordano Bruno

Perchance you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it. — Giordano Bruno

I do not know when, but I know that many have come in this century to develop arts and sciences, sow the seeds of a new culture that will flourish, unexpected, sudden, just when the power is deluded into believing they have won. — Giordano Bruno

Denis's love for Mattia had burned itself out, like a forgotten candle in an empty room, leaving behind a ravenous discontent. — Paolo Giordano

The fools of the world have been those who have established religions, ceremonies, laws, faith, rule of life. — Giordano Bruno

It was like being wrapped in a sheet, all white, nothing but white, above, below, all around you. It was the exact opposite of darkness, but it frightened Alice in precisely the same way. — Paolo Giordano

Do you really like studying?"
Mattia nodded.
"Why?"
"It's the only thing I know how to do," he said shortly. He wanted to tell her that he liked studying because you can do it alone, because all the things you study are already dead, cold, and chewed over. He wanted to tell her that the pages of the schoolbooks were all the same temperature, that they left you time to choose, that they never hurt you and you couldn't hurt them either. But he said nothing. — Paolo Giordano

There is in the universe neither center nor circumference. — Giordano Bruno

When we consider the being and substance of that universe in which we are immutably set, we shall discover that neither we ourselves nor any substance doth suffer death. For nothing is in fact diminished in its substance, but all things, wandering through infinite space, undergo change of aspect. — Giordano Bruno

Over the past year, since breaking up with Martin, she had begun to notice the foreignness of the place, to suffer from the chill that dried her skin and never really left her, even in the summer. And yet she couldn't make up her mind to leave. She depended on the place now; she had grown attached to it with the obstinacy with which people become attached only to things that hurt them. — Paolo Giordano

Mattia stayed right where he was, feeling those clothes that weren't his, but with the pleasant sensation of disappearing into them. — Paolo Giordano

The rest I omit, for many a bitter Pill can be swallowed under a golden Cover: I make no Mencion that in each of my Churches I put a Signe so that he who sees the Fabrick may see also the Shaddowe of the Reality of which it is the Pattern or Figure. Thus, in the church of Lime-house, the nineteen Pillars in the Aisles will represent the Names of Baal-Berith, the seven Pillars of the Chappell will signify the Chapters of his Covenant. All those who wish to know more of this may take up Clavis Salomonis, Niceron's Thaumaturgus Opticus where he speaks of Line and Distance, Cornelius Agrippa his De occuItia philosophia and Giordano Bruno his De magia and De vinculis in genere where he speaks of Hieroglyphs and the Raising of the Devilles. — Peter Ackroyd

Because they are well rested, these babies will be more alert and more willing to listen during their awake times, which in turn means they will be more active learners. They will also be more willing to play contentedly by themselves and not require constant entertainment by parents and other caregivers. — Suzy Giordano

Look at the reputation they gave him. [Giordano] Bruno without the pyre is a whiskey priest laying waste to the maids of Umbria. — Terence McKenna

With luck on your side, you can do without brains. — Giordano Bruno

If the butterfly wings its way to the sweet light that attracts it, it's only becasue it doesn't know that the fire can consume it. — Giordano Bruno

Every soul and spirit has some degree of continuity with the universal spirit, which is recognized to be located not only where the individual soul lives and perceives, but also to be spread out everywhere in its essence and substance, as many Platonists and Pythagoreans have taught. — Giordano Bruno

The archaeologists who will come and blow away the ashes from our house will unearth only the metal parts of the sophisticated furnishings, and it will take them some time to reconstruct their original beauty; they will find very few objects and almost no embellishments, not even in Emanuele's room, which from year to year is being emptied of toys and colors, because everything that's important to him is now found in the circuits of a tablet. I wonder what would suggest to them that a couple and then a family had lived in those rooms and that they were happy together, at least for long stretches of time. — Paolo Giordano

He opened his mouth to reply that feeling special is the worst kind of cage that a person can build for himself, but he didn't say anything. — Paolo Giordano

The hammers must be swung in cadence, when more than one is hammering the iron. — Giordano Bruno

Just as Divinity descends in a certain manner, to the extent that one communicates with Nature, so one ascends to Divinity through Nature, just as by means of a life resplendent in natural things one rises to the life that presides over them. — Giordano Bruno

The whole soul is in the whole body, in the bones and in the veins and in the heart; it is no more present in one part than in another, and it is no less present in one part than in the whole, nor in the whole less than in one part. — Giordano Bruno

It was strange to find them here, still alive, with their shared bits of past that suddenly counted for nothing. — Paolo Giordano

Time takes all and gives all. — Giordano Bruno

In the Second Part of this Dialogue, that which hath already been shewn concerning the passive power of the universe is demonstrated for the active power of the efficient cause, set forth with arguments of which the first deriveth from the fact that divine power should not be otiose; particularly positing the effect thereof outside the substance thereof (if indeed aught can be outside it), and that it is no less otiose and invidious if it produce a finite effect than if it produce none. — Giordano Bruno

They lived the slow and invisible interpenetration of their universes, like two stars gravitating around a common axis, in ever tighter orbits, whose clear destiny is to coalesce at some point in space and time. — Paolo Giordano

Why did you choose to stay here?" ( ... )
"I don't know," he said. "It's as if there's more oxygen here. — Paolo Giordano

In the long run, every love needs someone to witness and acknowledge it, to validate it, or it may turn out to be just a mirage. — Paolo Giordano

Of the eternal incorporeal substance nothing is changed, is formed or deformed, but there always remains only that thing which cannot be a subject of dissolution, since it is not possible that it be a subject of composition, and therefore, either of itself or by accident, it cannot be said to die . — Giordano Bruno

They dispute not in order to find or even to seek Truth, but for victory, and to appear the more learned and strenuous upholders of a contrary opinion. Such persons should be avoided by all who have not a good breastplate of patience. — Giordano Bruno

Maybe you who condemn me are in greater fear than I who am condemned. — Giordano Bruno

In fact, they didn't talk much at all, but they spent time together, each in his own abyss, held safe and tight by the other's silence. — Paolo Giordano

They had passed through them in a state of apnoea, he rejecting the world and she feeling rejected by it, and they had noticed that it didn't make a big difference. — Paolo Giordano

The universe is then one, infinite, immobile ... It is not capable of comprehension and therefore is endless and limitless, and to that extent infinite and indeterminable, and consequently immobile. — Giordano Bruno

What you receive from others is a testimony to their virtue; but all that you do for others is the sign and clear indication of your own. — Giordano Bruno

But his eyes were too dark for her to make out any spark in them — Paolo Giordano

She tried to open the bottle, but the top slipped through her fingers without moving. He took the bottle from her hand and opened it with his thumb and index finger. There was nothing special in the gesture and yet she found it strangely fascinating like a small heroic feat performed specially for her. — Paolo Giordano

The beginning, middle, and end of the birth, growth, and perfection of whatever we behold is from contraries, by contraries, and to contraries; and whatever contrariety is, there is action and reaction, there is motion, diversity, multitude, and order, there are degrees, succession and vicissitude. — Giordano Bruno

Mattia was startled to find that he still had instincts, buried beneath the dense network of thoughts and abstractions that had woven itself around him. — Paolo Giordano

Fourteenthly, if infinite active power doth actuate corporeal and dimensional being, this being must necessarily be infinite; otherwise there would be derogation from the nature and dignity both of creator and of creation. — Giordano Bruno

It is immoral to hold an opinion in order to curry another's favor; mercenary, servile, and against the dignity of human liberty to yield and submit; supremely stupid to believe as a matter of habit; irrational to decide according to the majority opinion, as if the number of sages exceeded the infinite number of fools. — Giordano Bruno

Perhaps the old lady had kidnapped Michela, had found her in the park and taken her away, because she had a violent desire for a little girl but couldn't have children. Her womb was defective or else she was unwilling to make a bit of room in it.
Just like me, thought Alice. — Paolo Giordano

She and Mattia were united by an invisible, elastic thread, buried under a pile of meaningless things, a thread that could exist only between two people like themselves: two people who had acknowledged their own solitude within the other. — Paolo Giordano