Ralph Cudworth

Ralph Cudworth (1617 – June 26, 1688) was an English philosopher, the leader of the Cambridge Platonists.

Quotes

  • The best assurance any one can have of his interest in God, is doubtless the conformity of his soul to Him. When our heart is once turned into a conformity with the mind of God. when we feel our will conformed to His will, we shall then presently perceive a spirit of adoption within ourselves, teaching us to say, "Abba, Father."
    • Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 16.

Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality (1731)

  • The true knowledge or science which exists nowhere but in the mind itself, has no other entity at all besides intelligibility; and therefore whatsoever is clearly intelligible, is absolutely true.
    • Ch. 5, sct. 7
  • Knowledge is not a passion from without the mind, but an active exertion of the inward strength, vigour and power of the mind, displaying itself from within.
    • Ch. 1, sct. 1
  • Truth is the most unbending and uncompliable, the most necessary, firm, immutable, and adamantine thing in the world.
    • Ch. 5, sct. 3
  • If intellection and knowledge were mere passion from without, or the bare reception of extraneous and adventitious forms, then no reason could be given at all why a mirror or looking-glass should not understand; whereas it cannot so much as sensibly perceive those images which it receives and reflects to us.
    • Ch. 1, sct. 3
This article is issued from Wikiquote. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.