“Perchance you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it.”
His famous response to his judges upon his conviction as a heretic, prior to his transfer to the civil authorities for execution. (16 February 1600); as quoted by Gaspar Schopp of Breslau in a letter to Conrad Rittershausen; as translated in Giordano Bruno : His Life and Thought (1950) by Dorothea Waley Singer http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/bruno00.htm <br class="br">Variant translations:<br>Perhaps your fear in passing judgment on me is greater than mine in receiving it.<br>It may be you fear more to deliver judgment upon me than I fear judgment.<br>You pronounce sentence upon me with greater fear than I receive it.
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Giordano Bruno62
Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer 1548–1600Related quotes
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