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It is by the straight line and the circle that the first and most simple example and representation of all things may be demonstrated, whether such things be either non-existent or merely hidden under Nature's veils.

— John Dee Monas Hieroglyphica (1564)

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More quotes by John Dee

There is (gentle reader) nothing (the works of God only set apart) which so much beautifies and adorns the soul and mind of man as does knowledge of the good arts and sciences.

The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara (1570)

A marveilous newtrality have these things mathematicall and also a strange participation between things supernaturall, imortall, intellectuall, simple and indivisible, and things naturall, mortall, sensible, compounded and divisible.

The mathematicall praeface to the Elements of geometrie of Euclid of Megara (1570)

Cut that in Three, which Nature hath made One,
Then strengthen hyt, even by it self alone,
Wherewith then Cutte the poudred Sonne in twayne,
By length of tyme, and heale the woonde againe.

Testamentum Johannis Dee Philosophi Summi ad Johannem Gwynn (1568)

Neither the circle without the line, nor the line without the point, can be artificially produced. It is, therefore, by virtue of the point and the Monad that all things commence to emerge in principle.
That which is affected at the periphery, however large it may be, cannot in any way lack the support of the central point.

Monas Hieroglyphica (1564)

Therefore, the central point which we see in the centre of the hieroglyphic Monad produces the Earth, round which the Sun, the Moon, and the other planets follow their respective paths. The Sun has the supreme dignity, and we represent him by a circle having a visible centre.

Monas Hieroglyphica (1564)

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