Nicholas of Cusa Quotes
Nicholas of Cusa was a German cardinal, philosopher, and mathematician at the threshold between the medieval and Renaissance worlds. His treatise On Learned Ignorance argued that the highest human wisdom is the recognition that the infinite is not commensurable with the finite, and he developed the doctrine of the coincidence of opposites in God. The quotes below are attributed to Nicholas of Cusa, organized by topic.
Browse Nicholas of Cusa by topic
Nicholas of Cusa on God
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Attributed to Nicholas of Cusa:
“God is the absolute maximum and the absolute minimum at the same time.”
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Attributed to Nicholas of Cusa:
“All things are what they are because the infinite makes them so.”
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“It is you, O God, who is being sought in various religions in various ways, and named with various names. For you remain as you are, to all incomprehensible and inexpressible. When you will graciously grant it then sword, jealous hatred and evil will cease and all will come to know that there is but one religion in the variety of religious rites.”
Great Thoughts Treasury -
“God, therefore, is the one most simple essence of the entire universe.”
ibid. -
“Within itself the soul sees all things more truly than as they exist in different things outside itself. And the more it goes out unto other things in order to know them, the more it enters into itself in order to know itself.”
Nicholas of Cusa and Jasper Hopkins (Translator). On Equality. 1459. -
“See, therefore, how you, the philosophers of various schools of thought, agree in the religion of the one God, whom you all presupposed in that which you as lovers of wisdom acknowledge”
De Pace Fidei(The Peace of Faith) (1453) -
“We praise our God, whose mercy rules over all His works and who alone has the power to bring it about, that such a great diversity of religions would be brought together in one harmonious peace”
De Pace Fidei(The Peace of Faith) (1453) -
“In God, absolute unity is absolute multiplicity, absolute identity is absolute diversity ; absolute actuality is absolute potentiality”
De Docta Ignorantia(On Learned Ignorance) (1440) -
“You will not find another faith, but rather one and the same single religion presupposed everywhere”
De Pace Fidei(The Peace of Faith) (1453) -
“I behold Thee, 0 Lord my God, in a kind of mental trance”
De visione Dei(On The Vision of God) (1453)
Nicholas of Cusa on Knowledge
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Attributed to Nicholas of Cusa:
“The intellect knows that it is ignorant.”
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“Great Thoughts Treasury”
It is you, O God, who is being sought in various religions in various ways, and named with various names. For you remain as you are, to all incomprehensible and inexpressible. When you will graciously grant it then sword, jealous hatred and evil will cease and all will come to know that there is but one religion in the variety of religious rites. -
“Nicholas of Cusa and Jasper Hopkins (Translator). On Equality. 1459.”
Within itself the soul sees all things more truly than as they exist in different things outside itself. And the more it goes out unto other things in order to know them, the more it enters into itself in order to know itself. -
“Theosophy Trust, Great Teachers Series”
Now I behold as in a mirror, in an icon, in a riddle, life eternal, for that is naught other than that blessed regard wherewith Thou never ceasest most lovingly to behold me, yea, even the secret places of my soul. With Thee, to behold is to give life; 'tis unceasingly to impart sweetest love of Thee; 'tis to inflame me to love of Thee by love's imparting, and to feed me by inflaming, and by feedi -
“Of the inhabitants then of worlds other than our own we can know still less having no standards by which to appraise them.”
ibid. -
“All we know of the truth is that the absolute truth, such as it is, is beyond our reach.”
De Docta Ignorantia(On Learned Ignorance) (1440) -
“Therefore in the Qur'an the splendour of the Gospel shines forth to the wise, to those who are led by the Spirit of Christ”
Cribratio Alkorani(Sifting the Qur'an) -
“There can only be one wisdom. For if it were possible that there be several wisdoms, then these would have to be from one. Namely, unity is prior to all plurality”
De Pace Fidei(The Peace of Faith) (1453) -
“Even though you acknowledge diverse religions, you all presuppose in all of this diversity the one, which you call wisdom”
De Pace Fidei(The Peace of Faith) (1453)
Nicholas of Cusa on Life
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“I am a -living shadow and Thou the Truth... Therefore, my God, Thou art alike shadow and Truth; Thou art alike the image and the Exemplar of myself and all men.”
De Docta Ignorantia(On Learned Ignorance) (1440) -
“For a persistent and continued ascent to [the Principle and Source of] life is the constituent element of increased happiness.”
De Docta Ignorantia(On Learned Ignorance) (1440) -
“All men strive and hope for nothing other than eternal life in their human nature. For this they instituted purgations of souls and sacred rites, in order to be better adapted in their nature to that eternal life.”
De Pace Fidei(The Peace of Faith) (1453)
Nicholas of Cusa on Mind
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“With the senses man measures perceptible things, with the intellect he measures intelligible things, and he attains unto supra-intelligible things transcendently.”
ibid.
Nicholas of Cusa on Nature
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Attributed to Nicholas of Cusa:
“The center of the universe is everywhere, and its circumference nowhere.”
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“Life, as it exists on Earth in the form of men, animals and plants, is to be found, let us suppose in a high form in the solar and stellar regions. Rather than think that so many stars and parts of the heavens are uninhabited and that this earth of ours alone is peopled – and that with beings perhaps of an inferior type – we will suppose that in every region there are inhabitants, differing in nature by rank and all owing their origin to God, who is the center and circumference of all stellar regions”
De docta ignorantia -
“The universe has no circumference , for if it had a center and a circumference there would be some and some thing beyond the world, suppositions which are wholly lacking in truth. Since, therefore, it is impossible that the universe should be enclosed within a corporeal center and corporeal boundary, it is not within our power to understand the universe, whose center and circumference are God . And though the universe cannot be infinite, nevertheless it cannot be conceived as finite since there are no limits within which it could be confined.”
ibid. -
“For we see that man is a civil and political animal, and is naturally inclined to civilization.”
De concordantia catholica(The Catholic Concordance) (1434)
Nicholas of Cusa on Time
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“To the various nations, however, You have sent various prophets and masters, the one for this, the other for another time.”
De Pace Fidei(The Peace of Faith) (1453)
Nicholas of Cusa on Truth
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Attributed to Nicholas of Cusa:
“Every searcher into truth knows by some revelation.”