Giordano Bruno Quotes

“Why should we place Christ at the top and summit of the human race? Was he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than Buddha? Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than Socrates? Was he more patient, more charitable, than Epictetus? Was he a greater philosopher, a deeper thinker, than Epicurus? In what respect was he the superior of Zoroaster? Was he gentler than Lao-tsze, more universal than Confucius? Were his ideas of human rights and duties superior to those of Zeno? Did he express grander truths than Cicero? Was his mind subtler than Spinoza’s? Was his brain equal to Kepler’s or Newton’s? Was he grander in death – a sublimer martyr than Bruno? Was he in intelligence, in the force and beauty of expression, in breadth and scope of thought, in wealth of illustration, in aptness of comparison, in knowledge of the human brain and heart, of all passions, hopes and fears, the equal of Shakespeare, the greatest of the human race?”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, About The Holy Bible

“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, Two Essays: A Forgotten Aspect of the University Question and The Day of the Rabblement

“Burning the witch Giordano Bruno is one more wound inflicted on Christ’s body.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, The Sun Watches the Sun

“[Giordano] Bruno died, despised and suffering, after eight years of agony. From that moment, his works have attracted interest, and he has long been recognized as an important figure in the development of modern thought. Nevertheless, few are familiar with the many and often bewildering pages of his writings. His Italian works have their place in the history of Italian literature. The Latin works in prose and verse are much more bulky and diffuse, but the few who grapple with them are rewarded by passages of great beauty and eloquence.”
― Dorothea Singer, Giordano Bruno: His Life and Thought. With Annotated Translation of His Work "On the Infinite Universe and Worlds"

“To make the distinction unmistakably clear: Civilization is the vital force in human history; culture is that inert mass of institutions and organizations which accumulate around and tend to drag down the advance of life; Civilization is Giordano Bruno facing death by fire; culture is the Cardinal Bellarmino, after ten years of inquisition, sending Bruno to the stake in the Campo di Fiori...”
― Edward Abbey

“In trying to find out what Bruno thought of his priesthood, we now have a serious problem which we did not have before. In Venice, he told his fellow-prisoners that he was an enemy of the mass, and thought transubstantiation a ridiculous idea and the Catholic ritual bestial and blasphemous. He compared the elevation of the host to hanging somebody on a gallows, or perhaps to lifting him up on a pitchfork. He told somebody who had dreamt of going to mass that that was a terrible omen; and he performed a mock mass with Ovid's Art of Love instead of a missal. He joked about hungry priests going off from mass to a good breakfast. He spoke particularly ill of the mass as a sacrifice, and said that Abel, the archetype of the sacrificing priest, was a criminal butcher who was rightly killed by the vegetarian Cain. A phrase he used elsewhere, apparently about Christ's passion and not directly about the mass itself, seems nevertheless to express rather exactly his attitude to is: he called it 'some kind of a cabbalistic tragedy'.”
― John Bossy, Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair

“Se non è vero, è molto ben trovato.”
― Giordano Bruno , Gli Eroici Furori

“La Storia è una negromante in guerra contro il Tempo. Uno dopo l’altro, essa gli strappa gli anni dalle mani, liberandoli dai sepolcri polverosi in cui l’avversario li ha intrappolati per schierarli di nuovo in battaglia, come il suo invincibile esercito di non morti.”
― Beppe Roncari, Il libro di Renzo

“Giordano Bruno foi um filósofo, matemático, poeta e teólogo italiano do século XVI que desafiou as doutrinas da Igreja Católica. No Brasil, a igreja evangélica tenta replicar esse passado negro da igreja católica com relação à ciência, aos cientistas”
― Jorge Guerra Pires, Ciência para não cientistas: como ser mais racional em um mundo cada vez mais irracional (Vol. II: Religião) (Inteligência Artificial, Democracia, e Pensamento Crítico)

“M'illumino d'immenso come Giordano Bruno”
― Ivan Catanzaro, Volontà Di Potenza: Raccolta di poesie