Lumen de Lumine

“Learn, then, my disputant, and seek with your own eyes and hand the first foundation that nature carries hidden within herself. Only then will you be able to discuss things prudently and judiciously, and build upon an impregnable rock. Without this, you will remain a vain and fanciful babbler, whose discourses, lacking all experience, are founded on sand alone. Whoever wishes to teach me something through his speeches and trifles must not feed me merely empty words: an actual demonstration from experience must also be at hand. Without it, I am not obliged to give words a hearing or place faith in them.”