“Power from natural agents may go by a short line, and then in its activity greater”

—  Robert Grosseteste

De Lineas, Anguilis et Figurisas quoted by A.C. Crombie, Robert Groseesteste and the Origins of Experimental Science 1100-1700 (1953) citing Baur, Ludwig (ed.) Die Philosophischen Werke des Robert Grosseteste, Bischofs von Lincoln (1912)
Context: Power from natural agents may go by a short line, and then in its activity greater... But if by a straight line then its action is stronger and better, as Aristotle says in Book V of the Physics, because nature operates in the shortest way possible. But the straight line is the shortest of all, as he says in the same place.

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Robert Grosseteste 22
English bishop and philosopher 1175–1253

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