Nicholas of Cusa Quotes

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If that one is already a great artist, who knows how to educe from a small piece of wood the face of a king or of a queen, an ant or a camel, how great then is the mastery which can form as actuality everything which is in all potentiality? Therefore, God, who is able to produce from the most minute piece of matter the similitude of all forms which can be in this world and in infinitely many worlds, is of admirable subtlety.

Nicholas of Cusa
Love is subsequent to knowledge and to the thing known, for nothing unknown is loved.

Nicholas of Cusa
An external thing that is knowable [is knowable] by means of something internal that is consubstantial [with the rational soul].

Nicholas of Cusa
For reason's measurements, which attain unto temporal things, do not attain unto things that are free from time-just as hearing does not attain unto whatever is not-audible, even though these things exist and are unattainable by hearing.

Nicholas of Cusa
For our intellectual spirit has the power of fire in itself. For no other purpose is it sent by God to the earth than that it glow and grow into a flame. When it is excited by admiration, then it grows, just as if the wind entering into a fire excited its potential to actuality. If we apprehend the works of God, we marvel at eternal wisdom.

Nicholas of Cusa
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 feeding to kindle my yearning, and by kindling to make me drink of gladness, and by drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life, and by infusing to make it increase and endure. 'Tis to cause me to share Thine immortality.... For it is the absolute maximum of every rational desire, than which a greater cannot be

Nicholas of Cusa
For we see that man is a civil and political animal, and is naturally inclined to civilization

Nicholas of Cusa
Therefore since all men are free by nature, every government that restrains its subjects from evils and uses the fear of punishment to orient their freedom towards the good, whether it consists of written laws or of a living law in the person of the prince, is constituted only by the agreement and consent of the subjects. For if by nature men are equally powerful and equally free, then the true and well-ordered authority of one who is a fellow and equal in power can only be established by the choice and consent of others, just as laws are established by consent

Nicholas of Cusa
[In that vision] nothing is seen other than Thyself, [for Thou] art Thyself the object of Thyself (for Thou seest, and art That which is seen, and art the sight as well)

Nicholas of Cusa
Now law ought to be made by all those who are to be bound by it, or by a majority in an election, because it is for the good of the community, and what affects all ought to be decided by all, and a common decision can only be reached by the consent of all, or of a majority. There can be no excuse for disobeying the laws when each has established the law for himself.

Nicholas of Cusa
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

Nicholas of Cusa
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.

Nicholas of Cusa
Hence, in Thee, who art Love, the lover -is not one thing and the loved another, and the bond between them a third, but they are one and the same-Thou, Thyself, my God. Since, then, in Thee the loved is one with the lover, and being loved [is one] with loving, this bond of coincidence is an essential bond. For there is nothing in Thee that is not Thy very Essence.

Nicholas of Cusa
That all legislation is based on the natural law, and that all coercion must be brought about by the choice and consent of the subjects, since we are equally free by nature, and that jurisdictions that are created have no power from themselves, but only according to the laws and canons. This is a fine argument.

Nicholas of Cusa
For this reason You have given Your people diverse kings and seers, who are called prophets, of whom the majority instituted cults and laws corresponding to the purpose of their legation in Your name, and thus instructed the uncultivated people. They subsequently accepted these laws, as if You, the King of Kings, had spoken with them face to face, and believed they heard not those men, but rather You in them.

Nicholas of Cusa
You will not find another faith, but rather one and the same single religion presupposed everywhere

Nicholas of Cusa
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
You know, Lord, that a great multitude cannot exist without much diversity and that almost all are compelled to lead a laborious life full of troubles and afflictions, and in servile subjugation must be subject to the kings who rule. Hence it has occurred, that only a few men have enough leisure time to employ the freedom of their will and to gain knowledge of themselves. They are distracted by many corporeal cares and duties. Thus they cannot seek You, who are the concealed God.

Nicholas of Cusa
Of the inhabitants then of worlds other than our own we can know still less having no standards by which to appraise them

Nicholas of Cusa
God is an infinite circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

Nicholas of Cusa
Thus, while I am borne to loftiest heights, I behold Thee as Infinity

Nicholas of Cusa
From one individual was multiplied the many people who inhabit the earth's surface. And even if that intellectual spirit, sown in earth and swallowed up in shadow, does not see the light and the source of his beginning, nevertheless, you created along with him everything through which he, kindled by wonder at those things which he contacts by the senses, can sometimes lift the eyes of his mind to you, the Creator of all, and can be reunited to you in highest love and so can finally return to his source with joy

Nicholas of Cusa
For a persistent and continued ascent to [the Principle and Source of] life is the constituent element of increased happiness.

Nicholas of Cusa
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

Nicholas of Cusa
To the various nations, however, You have sent various prophets and masters, the one for this, the other for another time.

Nicholas of Cusa