Nicholas of Cusa Quotes on Nature
Nicholas of Cusa was a German cardinal, philosopher, and mathematician at the threshold between the medieval and Renaissance worlds. This page collects quotes attributed to Nicholas of Cusa on the topic of nature, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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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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Attributed to Nicholas of Cusa:
“The center of the universe is everywhere, and its circumference nowhere.”
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“God, therefore, is the one most simple essence of the entire universe.”
ibid. -
“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.