William of Ockham

The Franciscan way is poverty and simplicity.

Poverty is the highest virtue for the follower of Christ.

The Church should emulate the apostles' poverty.

Authority without reason is tyranny.

The secular power is independent of the spiritual.

Heresy is in the will, not in the intellect.

Simplicity in argument leads to clarity.

The world is as it appears to the senses.

Do not posit what you cannot prove.

Freedom of the will is God's greatest gift.

In debate, cut to the essence.

Theologians err by overcomplicating divine simplicity.

Life's meaning lies in voluntary poverty.

Logic serves truth, not sophistry.

The razor of reason shaves away excess.

Particulars alone exist; generals are mental constructs.

Against the multiplication of hypotheses.

The intellect abstracts from the senses.

In politics, as in logic, simplicity governs.

My exile teaches the value of inner freedom.