“For that which is without a beginning, a final cause need not be sought.”

—  Maimónides , book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.13

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "For that which is without a beginning, a final cause need not be sought." by Maimónides?
Maimónides photo
Maimónides 180
rabbi, physician, philosopher 1138–1204

Related quotes

Alexander Pope photo

“A god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Isaac Newton: Principia Mathematica (1687); Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy, Rule IV.
Misattributed

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“Epicurus, the great teacher of happiness, has correctly and finely divided human needs into three classes. First there are the natural and necessary needs which, if they are not satisfied, cause pain. Consequently, they are only victus et amictus [food and clothing] and are easy to satisfy. Then we have those that are natural yet not necessary, that is, the needs for sexual satisfaction. … These needs are more difficult to satisfy. Finally, there are those that are neither natural nor necessary, the needs for luxury, extravagance, pomp, and splendour, which are without end and very difficult to satisfy.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 346
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Douglas MacArthur photo

“Men since the beginning of time have sought peace.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

1940s, Victory broadcast (1945)
Context: Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have been attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found in so far as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful. Military alliances, balances of power, Leagues of Nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now blocks out this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door.

Abdullah of Saudi Arabia photo

“We state with a unified voice that religions through which Almighty God sought to bring happiness to mankind should not be turned into instruments to cause misery”

Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (1924–2015) former King of Saudi Arabia

Saudi king promotes tolerance at U.N. forum http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4AB84U20081112 November 2008.

Francis Bacon photo

“As we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of causes, and productions of effects: so that part which concerneth the inquiry of causes we do subdivide according to the received and sound division of causes. The one part, which is physic, inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes; and the other, which is metaphysic, handleth the formal and final causes.”

Francis Bacon book The Advancement of Learning

Book VII, 3
The Advancement of Learning (1605)

Albert Einstein photo

“Let us accept the world is a mystery. Nature is neither solely material nor entirely spiritual. Man, too, is more than flesh and blood; otherwise, no religions would have been possible. Behind each cause is still another cause; the end or the beginning of all causes has yet to be found. Behind each cause is still another cause; the end or the beginning of all causes has yet to be found. Yet, only one thing must be remembered: there is no effect without a cause, and there is no lawlessness in creation".”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 59
Context: Electromagnetic fields are not of the mind... Creation may be spiritual in origin, but that doesn't mean that everything created is spiritual. How can I explain such things to you? Let us accept the world is a mystery. Nature is neither solely material nor entirely spiritual. Man, too, is more than flesh and blood; otherwise, no religions would have been possible. Behind each cause is still another cause; the end or the beginning of all causes has yet to be found. Behind each cause is still another cause; the end or the beginning of all causes has yet to be found. Yet, only one thing must be remembered: there is no effect without a cause, and there is no lawlessness in creation".

“The real turning point between the medieval age of faith and the modern age of unfaith came when the scientists of the seventeenth century turned their backs upon what used to be called “final causes.” The final cause of a thing or event meant the purpose which it was supposed to serve in the universe, its cosmic purpose.”

Walter Terence Stace (1886–1967) British civil servant, educator and philosopher.

p.5.

Dante Alighieri photo

“To a greater power and to a better nature you, free, are subject, and that creates the mind in you which the heavens have not in their charge. Therefore if the present world goes astray, in you is the cause, in you let it be sought.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto XVI, lines 79–83 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

“The fact is that men need women more than women need men; and so, aware of this fact, man has sought to keep woman dependent upon him economically as the only method open to him of making himself necessary to her. Since in the beginning woman would not become his willing slave, he has wrought through the centuries a society in which woman must serve him if she is to survive.”

Elizabeth Gould Davis book The First Sex

The First Sex, ch. 22 - Woman in the Aquarian Age (1971).

Related topics