Giambattista Vico quotes

Uniform ideas originating among entire peoples unknown to each other must have a common ground of truth. (Giambattista Vico)
The nature of peoples is first crude, then severe, then benign, then delicate, finally dissolute. View quote
Giambattista Vico
The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things. View quote
Giambattista Vico
Men first feel necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their substance. View quote
Giambattista Vico
Common sense is judgment without reflection, shared by an entire class, an entire nation, or the entire human race. View quote
Giambattista Vico
The straight line cannot proceed through the torturous twists of life. View quote
Giambattista Vico
Imagination is more robust in proportion as reasoning power is weak. View quote
Giambattista Vico
People first feel things without noticing them, then notice them with inner distress and disturbance, and finally reflect on them with a clear mind. View quote
Giambattista Vico
It is true that men themselves made this world of nations... but this world without doubt has issued from a mind often diverse, at times quite contrary, and always superior to the particular ends that men had proposed to themselves. View quote
Giambattista Vico
Governments must conform to the nature of the men governed. View quote
Giambattista Vico
One truly understands only what one can create. (Giambattista Vico)
Understanding arises through making. View quote
Giambattista Vico
Political Science carries inseparably with it the study of piety, and that he who is not pious cannot be truly wise. View quote
Giambattista Vico
The truth itself is made. View quote
Giambattista Vico