Marsilio Ficino: Intellect

Marsilio Ficino was Italian philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on intellect.
Marsilio Ficino: 18 quotes10 likes

“The intellect is prompted by nature to comprehend the whole breadth of being. … Under the concept of truth it knows all, and under the concept of the good it desires all.”

Marsilio Ficino

Source: Five Questions Concerning the Mind (1495), p. 199

“The inquiry of the intellect never ceases until it finds that cause of which nothing is the cause but which is itself the cause of causes. This cause is none other than the boundless God. Similarly, the desire of the will is not satisfied by any good, as long as we believe that there is yet another beyond it. Therefore, the will is satisfied only by that one good beyond which there is no further good. What can this good be except the boundless God?”

Marsilio Ficino

Source: Five Questions Concerning the Mind (1495), p. 201

“If someone asks us which of these is more perfect, intellect or sense, the intelligible or the sensible, we shall promise to answer promptly, if he will first give us an answer to the following question. You know, my inquiring friend, that there is some power in you which has a notion of each of these things—a notion, I say, of intellect itself and of sense, of the intelligible and the sensible. This is evident, for the same power which compares these to each other must at that time in a certain manner see both. Tell me, then, whether a power of this kind belongs to intellect or sense? … Sense, as you yourself have shown, can perceive neither itself nor intellect and the objects of intellect; whereas intellect knows both. … Therefore, intellect is not only more perfect than sense but is also, after perfection itself, in the highest degree perfect.”

Marsilio Ficino

Source: Five Questions Concerning the Mind (1495), pp. 203-204