Nicholas of Cusa Quotes on Knowledge
Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464), the German cardinal and philosopher whose On Learned Ignorance (De Docta Ignorantia, 1440) and the later On Conjectures and the Idiota dialogues gave the late Middle Ages one of its most original metaphysical projects, treats genuine human wisdom as the lucid recognition of the unbridgeable incommensurability between the finite intellect and the infinite God in whom all opposites coincide. The doctrine of the coincidence of opposites — that in the divine infinite the maximum and the minimum coincide — frames the corresponding analysis of human knowledge as an approximating conjecture (coniectura) that can never reach exact identity with its object but can asymptotically approach it through the disciplined recognition of its own essential limits.
Quotes
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Attributed to Nicholas of Cusa:
“The intellect knows that it is ignorant.”
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Attributed to Nicholas of Cusa:
“Every searcher into truth knows by some revelation.”
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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 -
“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. -
“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. -
“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. -
“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) -
“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)