Skip to content
quotesby

This entire globe, this star, not being subject to death, and dissolution and annihilation being impossible anywhere in Nature, from time to time renews itself by changing and altering all its parts. There is no absolute up or down, as Aristotle taught; no absolute position in space; but the position of a body is relative to that of other bodies. Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer is always at the centre of things.

Giordano Bruno#17

NaturePhilosophyChangeUniverseCosmologyPerspectivePhysics

About this quote

What does it mean?
The universe is eternal and renews itself through constant change. Spatial positions are relative to other bodies, not absolute, and the observer is always at the center.
In plain terms
Nature never dies but keeps changing parts. Position depends on where other things are, not on fixed directions.
What can you take from it?
Everything changes constantly and there is no fixed up or down.

Where it applies

  • philosophical inquiry
  • astronomical theory
  • personal reflection

Putting it to work

  • question absolute spatial assumptions
  • view self as center of experience
  • study cosmic cycles

Questions to consider

  • How does your perspective shape your view of reality?
  • Is change the only constant?

Another view

The claim that the observer is always at the center contradicts modern physics.

More from Giordano Bruno

  1. The universe comprises all being in a totality; for nothing that exists is outside or beyond infinite being, as the latter has no outside or beyond.

    Permalink to quote #16
  2. When the end comes, you will be esteemed by the world and rewarded by God, not because you have won the love and respect of the princes of the earth, however p…

    Permalink to quote #18
  3. Anything we take in the Universe, because it has in itself that which is All in All, includes in its own way, the entire soul of the world, which is entirely i…

    Permalink to quote #15

Related quotes

  1. I tell you that if natural bodies have it from Nature to be moved by any movement, this can only be circular motion, nor is it possible that Nature has given t…

    Galileo GalileiGalileo Galilei quote #10
  2. Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat.

    Elizabeth BowenElizabeth Bowen quote #2
  3. The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.

    Freeman DysonFreeman Dyson quote #3