“Blessed is he who has been able to win knowledge of the causes of things.”

— Virgil , Georgics

Book II, line 490 (tr. H. Rushton Fairclough); homage to Lucretius.
John Dryden's translation:
: Happy the man, who, studying nature's laws,
Thro' known effects can trace the secret cause.
Georgics (29 BC)

Original

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.

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 "Blessed is he who has been able to win knowledge of the causes of things." by Virgil?

Virgil 138

Ancient Roman poet -70–-19 BC

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

Source: Ideas have Consequences (1948), p. 13.
Context: In the popular arena, one can tell … that the average man … imagines that an industrious acquisition of particulars will render him a man of knowledge. With what pathetic trust does he recite his facts! He has been told that knowledge is power, and knowledge consists of a great many small things.

“Mighty is he who has knowledge”

Ferdowsi (940–1020) Persian poet

Variant translation: One who has wisdom is powerful

“On the whole, a man who denies the existence of the effects arranged according to the causes in the question of arts, or whose wisdom cannot understand it, then he has no knowledge of the art of its Maker.”

Averroes book On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

“Satan has got a plan; and God has got a plan. God's plan is to fill his creation with people who obey his laws, live in peace, use the preaching of his Word to win souls, and go to live with Him in Heaven. Satan's plan is to reduce the population to zero. He hates humanity, exactly the opposite of Christianity. He wants to promise secret knowledge so that: "you can learn something that nobody else knows." That's what all the lodges promise too, by the way - some kind of secret knowledge. Use the teaching of evolution to get people to accomplish his goals and have people go to hell forever. Satan wants to reduce the population. The Bible says, "All things were created by him, and for him." God made a beautiful planet, beautiful garden and said, "Hey, fill it with people." First thing he said to Adam, was a blessing. "Be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth." Go fill it up. It's a blessing. This is the first mention of the word, "blessing."”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

"Blessed."
Creation seminars (2003-2005), The dangers of evolution

“He had been fighting with himself longer than he could remember and was still not sure who was winning.”

Jon Courtenay Grimwood (1953) British writer

Source: Stamping Butterflies (2004), Chapter 5 (p. 37)

“Blessed, unquestionably, is he who has it in his power to do evil, yet does it not.”

Marguerite de Navarre book Heptaméron

Fifth Day, Novel XLII (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)

“A feeling heart is a blessing that no one, who has it, would be without; and it is a moral security of innocence; since the heart that is able to partake of the distress of another, cannot wilfully give it.”

Samuel Richardson book The History of Sir Charles Grandison

Vol. 3, letter 32.
Sir Charles Grandison (1753–1754)

“Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Bk. III, ch. 11.
1840s, Past and Present (1843)

“The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes.”

Avicenna (980–1037) medieval Persian polymath, physician, and philosopher

"On Medicine, (c. 1020) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1020Avicenna-Medicine.html
Context: The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health. And because health and sickness and their causes are sometimes manifest, and sometimes hidden and not to be comprehended except by the study of symptoms, we must also study the symptoms of health and disease. Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials. Of these causes there are four kinds: material, efficient, formal, and final.

“But God, who is able to prevail, wrestled with him, as the Angel did with Jacob, and marked him; marked him for his own; marked him with a blessing, a blessing of obedience to the motions of his blessed Spirit.”

Izaak Walton (1593–1683) English author and biographer

Life of Donne (1640).

“Blessed is he who has been able to win knowledge of the causes of things.”

Original

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Virgil 138

Related quotes

Related topics