Nicholas of Cusa > Quotes

“In God, absolute unity is absolute multiplicity, absolute identity is absolute diversity; absolute actuality is absolute potentiality.”
― Nicolaus Cusanus, Nicholas of Cusa on Learned Ignorance: A Translation and an Appraisal of De Docta Ignorantia

“Wisdom is not to be found in the art of oratory, or in great books, but in a withdrawal from these sensible things and in a turning to the most simple and infinite forms. You will learn how to receive it into a temple purged from all vice, and by fervent love to cling to it until you may taste it and see how sweet That is which is all sweetness. Once this has been tasted, all things which you now consider as important will appear as vile, and you will be so humbled that no arrogance or other vice will remain in you. Once having tasted this wisdom, you will inseparably adhere to it with a chaste and pure heart. You will choose rather to forsake this world and all else that is not of this wisdom, and living with unspeakable happiness you will die.”
― Nicolaus Cusanus

“When all my endeavor is turned toward Thee because all Thy endeavor is turned toward me; when I look unto Thee alone with all my attention, nor ever turn aside the eyes of my mind, because thou dost enfold me with Thy constant regard; when I direct my love toward Thee alone because Thou, who art Love’s self hast turned Thee toward me alone. And what, Lord, is my life, save that embrace wherein Thy delightsome sweetness doth so lovingly enfold me?”
― Nicholas of Cusa

“Of wisdom, therefore, which all men by nature desire to know and seek with such mental application, one can know only that it is higher than all knowledge and thus unknowable, unutterable in any words, unintelligible to any intellect, unmeasurable by any measure, unlimitable by any limit ... unaffirmable by any affirmation, undeniable by any negation, indubitable by any doubt, and no opinion can be held about it.”
― Nicholas of Cusa

“Unde erit machina mundi quasi habens undique centrum et nullibi circumferentiam, quoniam eius circumferentia et centrum est Deus, qui est undique et nullibi.
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The machine of the world will have its centre everywhere, so to speak, and its circumference nowhere, because its circumference and its centre are God, who is everywhere and nowhere.”
― Nicholas of Cusa

“God is the not-other.”
― Nikolaus von Kues

“Not-other is not other; nor is it other than other; nor is it other in an other. [These points are true] for no other reason than that [Not-other is] Not-other, which cannot in any way be an other— as if something were lacking to it, as to an other. Because other is other than something, it lacks that than which it is other. But because Not-other is not other than anything, it does not lack anything, nor can anything exist outside of it. Hence, without Not-other no thing can be spoken of or thought of, because it would not be spoken of or thought of through that without which, since it precedes all things, no thing can exist or be known. Accordingly, in itself Not-other is seen antecedently and as absolutely no other than itself; and in an other it is seen as not other than this other.”
― Nicholas of Cusa, Nicholas of Cusa on God as not-other: A translation and an appraisal of De li non aliud

“Every constitution is rooted in natural law and cannot be valid if it contradicts it.”
― Nicholas of Cusa, The Catholic Concordance

“Since all are free by nature, all government, whether by written law or a prince, is based solely on the agreement and consent of the subject. For if by nature men are equally powerful and free, true and ordered power in the hands of one can be established only by the election and consent of the others, just as law also is established by consent . . . It is clear, therefore, that the binding validity of all constitutions is based on tacit or express agreement and consent.”
― Nicholas of Cusa, The Catholic Concordance

“We surmise, that in the solar region there are inhabitants which are more solar, brilliant, illustrious, and intellectual—being even more spiritlike than [those] on the moon, where [the inhabitants] are more moonlike, and than [those] on the earth, [where they are] more material and more solidified . . . We believe this on the basis of the fiery influence of the sun and on the basis of the watery and aerial influence of the moon and the weighty material influence of the earth. In like manner, we surmise that none of the other regions of the stars are empty of inhabitants—as if there were as many particular mondial parts of the one universe as there are stars, of which there is no number.”
― Nicholas of Cusa, Nicholas of Cusa on Learned Ignorance: A Translation and an Appraisal of De Docta Ignorantia

“THE GREATEST DISORDER COMES FROM ABUSES ON THE PART OF THE HEAD, WHEN SUPERIORS USURP THE POWER OF THOSE UNDER THEM.”
― Nicholas of Cusa, The Catholic Concordance