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The intellect is prompted by nature to comprehend the whole breadth of being. ... Under the concept of truth it knows all, and under the concept of the good it desires all.

— Marsilio Ficino Five Questions Concerning the Mind (1495)

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More quotes by Marsilio Ficino

Saturn seems to have impre\ssed the seal of melancholy on me from the beginning.

The people who have discovered something important in any of the more noble arts have principally done so when they have abandoned the body and taken refuge in the citadel of the soul.

The desire of the will is not satisfied by any good, as long as we believe that there is yet another beyond it. Therefore, the will is satisfied only by that one good beyond which there is no further good. What can this good be except the boundless God?

Five Questions Concerning the Mind (1495)

The inquiry of the intellect never ceases until it finds that cause of which nothing is the cause but which is itself the cause of causes. This cause is none other than the boundless God. Similarly, the desire of the will is not satisfied by any good, as long as we believe that there is yet another beyond it. Therefore, the will is satisfied only by that one good beyond which there is no further good. What can this good be except the boundless God?

Five Questions Concerning the Mind (1495)

The rational soul in a certain manner possesses the excellence of infinity and eternity. If this were not the case, it would never characteristically incline toward the infinite. Undoubtedly this is the reason that there are none among men who live contentedly on earth and are satisfied with merely temporal possessions.

Five Questions Concerning the Mind (1495)

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