Zitate von Giordano Bruno

„Wer zu philosophieren sucht, muss zuerst alle Dinge bezweifeln. Er darf nicht Stellung beziehen in einer Debatte, bevor er die verschiedenen Meinungen angehört hat, sie abgewogen und die verschiedenen Gründe dafür und dagegen betrachtet hat. Er darf nie richten oder Stellung beziehen auf Grundlage dessen, was er [nur] gehört hat, was der Mehrheit entspricht, wegen des Alters, der Verdienste oder des Ansehens des betreffenden Sprechers, sondern er muss entsprechend der Überzeugungskraft einer zusammenhängenden Lehre vorgehen, die sich an wirkliche Dinge hält und an eine Wahrheit, die im Lichte der Vernunft begriffen werden kann.“

—  Giordano Bruno

De triplici minimo I, i, ibid., eigene Übers. der Zitation in Hilary Gatti: Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science, Ithaca, London 1999, S. 4.
De triplici minimo

„Die unzureichende Sinneswahrnehmung widerlegt die Unendlichkeit nicht.“

—  Giordano Bruno

Zwiegespräche vom unendlichen All und den Welten
Zwiegespräche vom unendlichen All und den Welten (1585)

„Siehe!, so sind wir denn über allen Neid erhaben, frei von eitler Angst und törichter Sorge, das Gute in der Ferne zu suchen, was wir so nah und unmittelbar besitzen.“

—  Giordano Bruno

Zwiegespräche vom unendlichen All und den Welten
Zwiegespräche vom unendlichen All und den Welten (1585)

„Wenn also Geist, Seele, Leben sich in allen Dingen vorfindet und in gewissen Abstufungen die ganze Materie erfüllt, so ist der Geist offenbar die wahre Wirklichkeit und die wahre Form aller Dinge. Die Weltseele ist also das constituierende Formalprincip des Universums und dessen, was es enthält; d. h. wenn das Leben sich in allen Dingen findet, so ist die Seele Form aller Dinge; sie ist überall die ordnende Macht für die Materie und herrscht in dem Zusammengesetzten; sie bewirkt die Zusammensetzung und den Zusammenhalt der Theile.“

—  Giordano Bruno

Von der Ursache, dem Prinzip und dem Einen, 2. Dialog http://www.zeno.org/nid/20009159371. Aus dem Italienischen von Adolf Lasson, Philosophische Bibliothek Band 21, Verlag Felix Meiner, 3. Auflage, Hamburg 1902, S. 39
"Se dunque il spirto, la anima, la vita si ritrova in tutte le cose e, secondo certi gradi, empie tutta la materia; viene certamente ad essere il vero atto e la vera forma de tutte le cose. L'anima, dunque, del mondo è il principio formale constitutivo de l'universo e di ciò che in quello si contiene. Dico che, se la vita si trova in tutte le cose, l'anima viene ad esser forma di tutte le cose: quella per tutto è presidente alla materia e signoreggia nelli composti, effettua la composizione e consistenzia de le parti." - De la causa, principio et uno (1584) pp. 244-5 modernsource.daphnet.org http://modernsource.daphnet.org/texts/Bruno/BruCausa,244%5B2%5Det245%5B1%5Det246%5B1%5D
Von der Ursache, dem Prinzip und dem Einen (1584)

„Es ist leicht, Vorschriften über die Theorie des Beweises aufzustellen, aber der Beweis selbst ist schwer zu führen.“

—  Giordano Bruno

Von der Ursache, dem Prinzip und dem Einen, 2. Dialog

„Wisst also in Kürze, dass die Weltseele und die Gottheit überall und in jedem Theile allgegenwärtig sind nicht in der Weise, wie irgend ein stoffliches Ding daselbst sein kann; – denn das ist jedem Körper und jedem Geist unmöglich, welcher es auch sei; – sondern auf eine Weise, welche euch nicht leicht anders klar zu machen ist als folgendermaassen. Wenn es heisst, die Weltseele und die universale Form sind überall, so ist das nicht körperlich oder der Ausdehnung nach zu verstehen; – denn so sind sie und können sie auch nicht in einem Theile sein; – sondern sie sind geistig überall ganz.“

—  Giordano Bruno

Von der Ursache, dem Prinzip und dem Einen, 2. Dialog http://www.zeno.org/nid/20009159371. Aus dem Italienischen von Adolf Lasson (Philosophische Bibliothek 21), 3. Auflage, Hamburg 1902, S. 43.
Von der Ursache, dem Prinzip und dem Einen (1584)

„Solchergestalt ist das eine höchste Wesen, in welchem Wirklichkeit und Vermögen ungeschieden sind, welches auf absolute Weise alles sein kann und alles das ist, was es sein kann, in unentfalteter Weise ein Einiges, Unermessliches, Unendliches, was alles Sein umfasst; in entfalteter Weise dagegen ist es in den sinnlich wahrnehmbaren Körpern und in der Trennung von Vermögen und Wirklichkeit, wie wir sie in ihnen wahrnehmen.“

—  Giordano Bruno

Von der Ursache, dem Prinzip und dem Einen, 5. Dialog http://www.zeno.org/nid/20009159371. Aus dem Italienischen von Adolf Lasson (Philosophische Bibliothek 21), 3. Auflage, Hamburg 1902, S. 104.
Von der Ursache, dem Prinzip und dem Einen (1584)

„Es mag leicht sein, über den Beweisgang in der Wissenschaft Theorien aufzustellen; aber das Beweisen selbst ist schwer.“

—  Giordano Bruno

Von der Ursache, dem Prinzip und dem Einen, 2. Dialog http://www.zeno.org/nid/20009159371. Aus dem Italienischen von Adolf Lasson, Philosophische Bibliothek Band 21, Verlag Felix Meiner, 3. Auflage, Hamburg 1902.
Von der Ursache, dem Prinzip und dem Einen (1584)

„Doch obwohl Theorien mehrfacher Universen heute wieder populär sind, wäre es falsch, Bruno als Märtyrer der Wissenschaft anzusehen. Seine Spekulationen basierten nicht auf Beobachtung und Experiment, sondern auf okkulten Traditionen und apriorischen Argumenten.“

—  Giordano Bruno

Anthony Kenny: Geschichte der abendländischen Philosophie, Bd. 3. Aus d. Engl. übers. von Manfred Weltecke, Darmstadt 2012, S. 33.

„Der Schöpfer kann nichts anderes schaffen, als was er schaffen will; er will nichts anderes schaffen, als was er schafft; folglich kann er nichts anderes schaffen, als was er schafft. Wer also die Unendlichkeit der Schöpfung leugnet, leugnet das Unendlichsein des schaffenden Vermögens.“

—  Giordano Bruno

Vom Unendlichen, in Ludwig Kuhlenbeck (Hg.): Giordano Bruno. Gesammelte Werke in sechs Bänden, zit. n. Jochen Kirchhoff: Giordano Brunoin Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten. 4. Aufl. Reinbek bei Hamburg (Rowohlts Monographien 285) 1993, S. 84.
Vom Unendlichen

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

—  Giordano Bruno

„Blind error, avaricious time, adverse fortune,
Deaf envy, vile madness, jealous iniquity,
Crude heart, perverse spirit, insane audacity,
Will not be sufficient to obscure the air for me,
Will not place the veil before my eyes,
Will never bring it about that I shall not
Contemplate my beautiful Sun.“

—  Giordano Bruno

"Of Love" as translated in The Infinite in Giordano Bruno : With a Translation of His Dialogue, Concerning the Cause, Principle, and One (1978) by Sidney Thomas Greenburg, p. 89
Variant translation:
Cause, Principle and One, the Sempiterne,
On whom all being, motion, life, depend.
From whom, in length, breadth, depth, their paths extend
As far as heaven, earth, hell their faces turn :
With sense, with mind, with reason, I discern
That not, rule, reckoning, may not comprehend
That power and bulk and multitude which tend
Beyond all lower, middle, and superne. <p> Blind error, ruthless time, ungentle doom,
Deaf envy, villain madness, zeal unwise,
Hard heart, unholy craft, bold deeds begun,
Shall never fill for one the air with gloom,
Or ever thrust a veil before these eyes,
Or ever hide from me my glorious sun.
As quoted in "Giordano Bruno" by Thomas Davidson, The Index Vol. VI. No. 36 (4 March 1886), p. 429
Cause, Principle, and Unity (1584)
Kontext: Cause, Principle, and One eternal
From whom being, life, and movement are suspended,
And which extends itself in length, breadth, and depth,
To whatever is in Heaven, on Earth, and Hell;
With sense, with reason, with mind, I discern,
That there is no act, measure, nor calculation, which can comprehend
That force, that vastness and that number,
Which exceeds whatever is inferior, middle, and highest;
Blind error, avaricious time, adverse fortune,
Deaf envy, vile madness, jealous iniquity,
Crude heart, perverse spirit, insane audacity,
Will not be sufficient to obscure the air for me,
Will not place the veil before my eyes,
Will never bring it about that I shall not
Contemplate my beautiful Sun.

„Divinity reveals herself in all things… everything has Divinity latent within itself.“

—  Giordano Bruno

As translated by Arthur Imerti (1964)
The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast (1584)
Kontext: Divinity reveals herself in all things... everything has Divinity latent within itself. For she enfolds and imparts herself even unto the smallest beings, and from the smallest beings, according to their capacity. Without her presence nothing would have being, because she is the essence of the existence of the first unto the last being.

„The fools of the world have been those who have established religions, ceremonies, laws, faith, rule of life.“

—  Giordano Bruno

Cabal of the Cheval Pegasus (1585)
Kontext: The fools of the world have been those who have established religions, ceremonies, laws, faith, rule of life. The greatest asses of the world are those who, lacking all understanding and instruction, and void of all civil life and custom, rot in perpetual pedantry; those who by the grace of heaven would reform obscure and corrupted faith, salve the cruelties of perverted religion and remove abuse of superstitions, mending the rents in their vesture. It is not they who indulge impious curiosity or who are ever seeking the secrets of nature, and reckoning the courses of the stars. Observe whether they have been busy with the secret causes of things, or if they have condoned the destruction of kingdoms, the dispersion of peoples, fires, blood, ruin or extermination; whether they seek the destruction of the whole world that it may belong to them: in order that the poor soul may be saved, that an edifice may be raised in heaven, that treasure may be laid up in that blessed land, caring naught for fame, profit or glory in this frail and uncertain life, but only for that other most certain and eternal life.

„The universal Intellect is the intimate, most real, peculiar and powerful part of the soul of the world.“

—  Giordano Bruno

Cause, Principle, and Unity (1584)
Kontext: The universal Intellect is the intimate, most real, peculiar and powerful part of the soul of the world. This is the single whole which filleth the whole, illumineth the universe and directeth nature to the production of natural things, as our intellect with the congruous production of natural kinds.

„There are countless suns and countless earths all rotating round their suns in exactly the same way as the seven planets of our system.“

—  Giordano Bruno

As quoted in The Discovery of Nature (1965), by Albert W. Bettex
Kontext: There are countless suns and countless earths all rotating round their suns in exactly the same way as the seven planets of our system. We see only the suns because they are the largest bodies and are luminous, but their planets remain invisible to us because they are smaller and non-luminous. The countless worlds in the universe are no worse and no less inhabited than our earth. For it is utterly unreasonable to suppose that those teeming worlds which are as magnificent as our own, perhaps more so, and which enjoy the fructifying rays of a sun just as we do, should be uninhabited and should not bear similar or even more perfect inhabitants than our earth. The unnumbered worlds in the universe are all similar in form and rank and subject to the same forces and the same laws. Impart to us the knowledge of the universality of terrestrial laws throughout all worlds and of the similarity of all substances in the cosmos! Destroy the theories that the earth is the center of the universe! Crush the supernatural powers said to animate the world, along with the so-called crystalline spheres! Open the door through which we can look out into the limitless, unified firmament composed of similar elements and show us that the other worlds float in an ethereal ocean like our own! Make it plain to us that the motions of all the worlds proceed from inner forces and teach us in the light of such attitudes to go forward with surer tread in the investigation and discovery of nature! Take comfort, the time will come when all men will see as I do.

„It does not grow corrupt. because there is nothing else into which it could change, given that it is itself all things.“

—  Giordano Bruno

As translated by Paul Harrison <!-- Fifth dialogue ?-->
Cause, Principle, and Unity (1584)
Kontext: The Universe is one, infinite, immobile. The absolute potential is one, the act is one, the form or soul is one, the material or body is one, the thing is one, the being in one, one is the maximum and the best... It is not generated, because there is no other being it could desire or hope for, since it comprises all being. It does not grow corrupt. because there is nothing else into which it could change, given that it is itself all things. It cannot diminish or grow, since it is infinite.

„Nature is none other than God in things…“

—  Giordano Bruno

As quoted in Elements of Pantheism (2004) by Paul A. Harrison
Kontext: 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.

„What he was, he became through having liberated himself from certain false axioms of the common and vulgar philosophy — I will not say blindness.“

—  Giordano Bruno

Thoughts on Nicolaus Copernicus, as translated in Agnes Mary Clerke: Copernicus in Italy http://www.archive.org/stream/edinburghreview146londuoft#page/116/mode/2up
The Ash Wednesday Supper (1584)
Kontext: He was a man of grave and cultivated mind, of rapid and mature intelligence; inferior to no preceding astronomer, unless in order of succession and time; a man, who in natural ability was far superior to Ptolemy, Hipparchus, Eudoxus, and all those others who followed in their footsteps. What he was, he became through having liberated himself from certain false axioms of the common and vulgar philosophy — I will not say blindness. Nevertheless, he did not depart far from them; because, studying mathematics rather than Nature, he failed to penetrate and dig deep enough altogether to cut away the roots of incongruous and vain principles, and thus, removing perfectly all opposing difficulties, free himself and others from so many empty investigations into things obvious and unchangeable. In spite of all this, who can sufficiently praise the magnanimity of this German, who, having little regard to the foolish multitude, stood firm against the torrent of contrary opinion, and, although well-nigh unarmed with living arguments, resuming those rusty and neglected fragments which antiquity had transmitted to him, polished, repaired, and put them together with reasonings more mathematical than philosophical; and so rendered that cause formerly contemned and contemptible, honourable, estimable, more probable than its rival, and certainly convenient and expeditious for purposes of theory and calculation? Thus this Teuton, although with means insufficient to vanquish, overthrow, and suppress falsehood, as well as resist it, nevertheless resolutely determined in his own mind, and openly confessed this final and necessary conclusion : that it is more possible that this globe should move with regard to the universe, than that the innumerable multitude of bodies, many of which are known to be greater and more magnificent than our earth, should be compelled, in spite of Nature and reason, which, by means of motions evident to the senses, proclaim the contrary, to acknowledge this globe as the centre and base of their revolutions and influences. Who then will be so churlish and discourteous towards the efforts of this man, as to cover with oblivion all he has done, by being ordained of the Gods as an Aurora — which was to precede the rising of this Sun of the true, ancient philosophy, buried during so many centuries in the tenebrous caverns of blind, malignant, froward, envious ignorance; and, taking note only of what he failed to accomplish, rank him amongst the number of the herded multitude, which discourses, guides itself, precipitates to destruction, according to the oral sense of a brutal and ignoble belief, rather than amongst those who, by the use of right reason, have been able to rise up, and resume the true course under the faithful guidance of the eye of divine intelligence.