Joseph Glanvill Quotes

• And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness, Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Angel, Men, Yield

  49 Copy quote

• It may not be impossible, but that our Faculties may be so construed, as always to deceive us in the things we judge most certain and assured.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Hype, Judging, May

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• The sages of old live again in us, and in opinions there is a metempsychosis.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Sage, Opinion

  Joseph Glanvill (1885). “Scepsis Scientifica: Or, Confest Ignorance, the Way to Science”

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• How the purer spirit is united to his clod, is a knot too hard for fallen humanity to untie.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Humanity, Spirit, Knots

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• Time, as a river, hath brought down to us what is more light and superficial, while things more solid and substantial have been immersed.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Time, Light, Rivers

  Joseph Glanvill (1885). “Scepsis Scientifica: Or, Confest Ignorance, the Way to Science ; in an Essay of the Vanity of Dogmatizing and Confident Opinion”

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• Some pretences daunt and discourage us, while others raise us to a brisk assurance.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Discouraging, Raises, Assurance

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• It is the great beauty of true religion that it shall be universal, and a departure in any instance from universality is a corruption of religion itself.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Religion, Departure, Corruption

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• The understanding also hath its idiosyncrasies as well as other faculties.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Understanding, Faculty, Wells

  Joseph Glanvill (1885). “Scepsis Scientifica: Or, Confest Ignorance, the Way to Science ; in an Essay of the Vanity of Dogmatizing and Confident Opinion”

  6 Copy quote

• Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Angel, Men, Yield

  Joseph Glanvill, Anthony Horneck, Henry More (1966). “Saducismus Triumphatus: Or, Full and Plain Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions [!] (1689)”

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• The belief of our Reason is an Exercise of Faith, and Faith is an Act of Reason.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Exercise, Belief, Reason

  Joseph Glanvill (1979). “Collected Works of Joseph Glanvill”, Georg Olms Verlag

  4 Copy quote

• Justice is but the distributing to everything according to the requirements of its nature.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Justice, Requirements

  Joseph Glanvill (1682). “Two Choice and Vsefvl Treatises: The One, Lux Orientalis; Or, An Enquiry Into the Opinion of the Eastern Sages Concerning the Præxistence of Sovls”, p.97

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• We have a mistaken notion of antiquity, calling that so which in truth is the world's nonage.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Calling, World, Truth Is

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• The woman in us still prosecutes a deceit like that begun in the garden.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Women, Garden, Deceit

  Joseph Glanvill (1985). “Collected works of Joseph Glanvill”

  7 Copy quote

• They that never peeped beyond the common belief in which their easy understandings were at first indoctrinated are strongly assured of the truth of their receptions.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Understanding, Prejudice, Firsts

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• The precipitancy of disputation, and the stir and noise of passions that usually attend it, must needs be prejudicial to verity.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Passion, Needs, Noise

  Joseph Glanvill (1665). “Scepsis Scientifica: Or, Confest Ignorance, the Way to Science; In an Essay of The Vanity of Dogmatizing, and Confident Opinon. With a Reply to the Exceptions of the Learned Thomas Albius”, p.122

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• To converse at the distance of the Indes by means of sympathetic contrivances may be as natural to future times as to us is a literary correspondence.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Distance, Mean, May

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• We cannot conceive how the Foetus is form'd in the Womb, nor as much as how a Plant springs from the Earth we tread on ... And if we are ignorant of the most obvious things about us, and the most considerable within our selves, 'tis then no wonder that we know not the constitution and powers of the creatures, to whom we are such strangers.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Spring, Knowledge, Science

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• What's impossible to all humanity may be possible to the metaphysics and physiology of angels.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Angel, Humanity, May

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• And for mathematical science, he that doubts their certainty hath need of a dose of hellebore.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Math, Doubt, Needs

  Joseph Glanvill (1885). “Scepsis Scientifica: Or, Confest Ignorance, the Way to Science ; in an Essay of the Vanity of Dogmatizing and Confident Opinion”

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• That though we are certain of many things, yet that Certainty is no absolute Infallibility, there still remains the possibility of our being mistaken in all matters of humane Belief and Inquiry.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Inquiry, Matter, Belief

  Joseph Glanvill (1979). “Collected Works of Joseph Glanvill”, Georg Olms Verlag

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• The union of a sect within itself is a pitiful charity; it's no concord of Christians, but a conspiracy against Christ; and they that love one another for their opinionative concurrence, love for their own sakes, not their Lord's.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Christian, Charity, Unions

  4 Copy quote

• There is nothing in words and styles out suitableness that makes them acceptable and effective.

  Joseph Glanvill

  Style, Acceptable

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