Averroes Quotes

Averroes was an Andalusian polymath. His interests ranged in diverse subjects. He had knowledge of psychology, philosophy, ethics and religion. Additionally he wrote about astronomy and medicine.

averroes quotes about life

Averroes was a man of many talents and knowledge; not only had he written about philosophy, but also documented and identified the symptoms of Stroke and Parkinson’s disease. He also invented retina as the part of the eye which is responsible for sensing light.

here are some Averroes quotes about life:

1. “All mankind are in agreement, except for those whose views are not worthy of consideration.” -Averroes

2. “Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to hate, and hate leads to violence. This is the equation.”-Averroes

3. “Women should be treated as human beings, not as domestic animals.”-Averroes

4. “The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.”-Averroes

Since, he had made innumerable commentaries on the philosophical treatise of Aristotle he was known as the commentator and also an ardent supporter of rationalism.

1. “If it is divisible at infinitum, then there should be infinite parts in the finite thing.”-Averroes

2. “The most important thing in learning is not what you learn but how.”-Averroes

 3. “No matter what you learn, it will never be enough because there is always something more to learn.”-Averroes

4. “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.”-Averroes

5. “The double meaning has been given to suit people’s diverse intelligence. The apparent contradictions are meant to stimulate the learned to deeper study.”-Averroes

6. “There is no city that is truly one other than this city that we [anahnti] are involved in bringing forth.”-Averroes

7. “Knowledge is the conformity of the object and the intellect.”-Averroes

8. “Knowledge is a light that illuminates our darkness.”-Averroes

9. “The intellect is only acquired in order to know things unknown.”-Averroes

10. “For a claim to be knowledge, it must be based on experience and cannot be based on authority alone.”-Averroes

11. “On the whole, a man who denies the existence of the effects arranged according to the causes in the question of arts, or whose wisdom cannot understand it, then he has no knowledge of the art of its Maker.”-Averroes

 12. “Knowledge begins in wonder.”-Averroes

13. “Knowledge used to be in the hearts of men, now it is just in their clothes.” -Averroes

14. “All sciences originated among the sons of Israel, the reason being the existence of prophecy among them which made their perfection in the sciences amazing.” -Averroes

Averroes Quotes about Spirituality

Averroes attempted to reconcile philosophies of Plato and Aristotle with early Muslim philosophers like Al-Farabi and Avicenna. He realized that the quest for a higher truth should be permissible in his religion.

6.”Whoever works in anatomy would increase his belief in God.”-Averroes

7.”Come the Day of Judgment, some believe that the body will be different from our present body. This is only transient, that will be eternal. For this also there are religious arguments.”-Averroes

Averroes quotes about religion

1.”Justice is entirely dependent of religion.”-Averroes

2. “The Law teaches that the universe was invented and created by God, and that it did not come into being by chance or by itself.”-Averroes

3. “False interpretation (of Quran) is the root of the rise of heretical sects in Islam.”-Averroes

4. “It is quite clear to you that all the people see that lower kinds of creation could have been made in a different way from that in which they really are, and as they see this lower degree in many things they think that they must have been made by chance.”-Averroes

5. “The fool says in his heart that there is no god.”-Averroes

6. “God creates people so they can be happy.”-Averroes

7. “The Asharites have expressed a very peculiar opinion, both with regard to reason and religion; about this problem they have explained it in a way in which religion has not, but have adopted quite an opposite method.”-Averroes

8. “Come the Day of Judgment, some believe that the body will be different from our present body. This is only transient, that will be eternal. For this also there are religious arguments.”-Averroes

averroes philosophical quotes

He was deeply influenced by Greek philosophers like Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. He was also influenced by Avicenna. He even inspired his own school of philosophy called Averroism. Since he was an advocate of the Aristotelian philosophy, he was opposed to the preceding Islamic Neoplatonic inclination.  

1. “Those [causes] that are before the purpose in something (in re) are not said to be cause of the purpose except in the way that matter is cause of the purpose.”-Averroes

2. “Being divides into actual and potential being.”-Averroes

3. “All beings belong to [at least] one of the ten Aristotelian categories, praedicamenta.”-Averroes

4. “The category of relation embraces the relation between more and less, as well as the relation between agent and patient.”-Averroes

5. “Motion occurs in more than one category.”-Averroes

6. “Aristotle and all the Ancients agree that nothing comes to be out of nothing, and I have seen some colleagues (socii) doubting on this question, but I entered into this in the treatise On the Substance of the Universe to some extent.”-Averroes

7. “If the metaphysician would not admit [the principle of purposiveness] he would be unable to prove that God has solicitousness for those [beings] that are here.”-Averroes

8. “The sage wants to be morally virtuous because he knows that both virtues, moral and theoretical, are inseparable. He knows the nature of justice existing in the substance of [created] beings and he aspires “to be similar to this nature and to acquire its form”-Averroes

9. “The art of medicine is an art that acts based on true principles; we seek through it to preserve the health of the human body and to eliminate disease as much as possible in each body. The purpose of this art is not inevitably to achieve healing, but rather to act appropriately in the appropriate time and extent, while waiting to achieve its purpose, as happens in the art of navigation and the command of the army.”-Averroes

10. “Medicine is an art whose action is preserving health by curing the disease based on science and experiment.”-Averroes

11. “Void is nothing else but dimensions, when dimensions are removed void becomes nothing.”-Averroes

12.  “It is only the scientific spirit that can provide for us an impartial judgment about what we should do at every moment.” -Averroes

13. “An army of philosophers would not be sufficient to change the nature of error and to make it truth.”-Averroes

14. “Two truths cannot contradict one another.”-Averroes

15. “If we admit the existence of the prophetic mission, by putting the idea of possibility, which is in fact ignorance, in place of certainty, and make miracles a proof of the truth of man who claims to be a prophet it becomes necessary that they should not be used by a person, who says that they can be performed by others than prophets, as the Mutakallimun do.”-Averroes

16. “This is one of the most intricate problems of religion. For if you look into the traditional arguments (Hadith) about this problem you will find them contradictory; such also being the case with arguments of reason. The contradiction in the arguments of the first kind is found in the Qur’an and the Hadith.”-Averroes

17. “Praise be to God with all due praise, and a prayer for Muhammad His chosen servant and apostle. The purpose of this treatise is to examine, from the standpoint of the study of the Law, whether the study of philosophy and logic is allowed by the Law, or prohibited, or commanded either by way of recommendation or as obligatory.”-Averroes

18. “If teleological study of the world is philosophy, and if the Law commands such a study, then the Law commands philosophy.”-Averroes

19. “To master this instrument the religious thinker must make a preliminary study of logic, just as the lawyer must study legal reasoning. This is no more heretical in the one case than in the other. And logic must be learned from the ancient masters, regardless of the fact that they were not Muslims.”-Averroes

20. “After logic we must proceed to philosophy proper. Here too we have to learn from our predecessors, just as in mathematics and law. Thus it is wrong to forbid the study of ancient philosophy. Harm from it is accidental, like harm from taking medicine, drinking water, or studying law.”-Averroes

21.”The texts about the future life fall into, since demonstrative scholars do not agree whether to take them in their apparent meaning or interpret them allegorically. Either is permissible. But it is inexcusable to deny the fact of a future life altogether.”-Averroes

22. “This art has three parts. The first part sets forth the speeches from which dialectical conversation is composed — i. e., its parts, and the parts of its parts on to its simplest components. This part is found in the first treatise on Aristotle’s book. The second part sets forth the topics from which syllogisms are drawn — syllogisms for affirming something or denying it with respect to every kind of problem occurring in this art. This is the next six treatises of Aristotle’s book The third part set forth how The third part sets forth how the questioner ought to question and the answerer answer. It also sets forth how many kinds of questions and answers there are. This is in the eighth treatise of Aristotle’s book.“-Averroes