Nicholas of Cusa Quotes - Page 2

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• There are not many beginnings but there is a single Beginning, prior to multitude. But if you were to say that the beginnings are plural apart from their partaking of the One, that statement would self-destruct. For, surely, these plural beginnings would be both alike, by virtue of their not partaking of the One, and not alike, by virtue of their not partaking of the One.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Self, Would Be, Virtue

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• Otherness cannot be a form. For to alter is to deform rather than to form. Therefore, that which is seen in different things can also be seen in and of itself without otherness, since otherness did not give being to it.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Giving, Different, Form

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• For all the [body's] members seek nothing except inseparable union with the intellect, as with their beginning, ultimate good, and everlasting life.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Body, Unions, Members

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• We see that God has implanted in all things a natural desire to exist with the fullest measure of existence that is compatible with their particular nature. To this end they are endowed with suitable faculties and activities; and by means of these there is in them a discernment that is natural and in keeping with the purpose of their knowledge, which ensures their natural inclination serving its purpose and being able to reach its fulfilment in that object towards which it is attracted by the weight of its own nature.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Mean, Desire, Purpose

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• You are therefore able to run on this path, on which God is found above all vision, hearing, taste, touch, smell, speech, sense, rationality, and intellect. It is found as none of these, but rather above everything as God of gods and King of all kings. Indeed, the King of the world of the intellect is the King of kings and Lord of lords in the universe.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Running, Kings, Smell

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• Just as all motion is from an unmovable cause, so everything divisible is from an indivisible cause. However, this visible, corporeal world is, assuredly, of a divisible nature, since what is corporeal is divisible. Therefore, this world is from an earlier, indivisible Cause.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  World, Causes, Indivisible

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

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Mean, Soul, Rational

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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

  Kings, Queens, Artist

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• Through itself the soul arrives at all harmony that is perceptible in otherness-just as through what is internal the soul arrives at what is external.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Soul, Harmony, Otherness

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• The intellect alone has an eye for viewing an essence, which it cannot see except in the true Cause, which is the Fount of all desire. Moreover, since all things seek to exist, then in all things there is desire from the Fount-of-desire, wherein being and desire coincide in the Same.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Eye, Essence, Desire

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• Therefore, in the Beginning, which is Truth, all things are Eternal Truth itself

  Nicholas of Cusa

  All Things, Eternal

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• When Eternity is considered to be the Beginning, then our speaking of the Beginning of the Begun is nothing but our speaking of the Eternity of the Eternal or our speaking of the Eternity of the Begun.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Eternity, Eternal

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• Life and perfection, joy and repose and whatever all the senses desire, lie in the distinguishing spirit, and from it they have everything that they have. Even if the organs lose in power and the life in them decreases in activity, it does not decrease in the distinguishing spirit, from which they receive the same life, when the fault or infirmity is removed.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Lying, Perfection, Joy

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• A given circle cannot be so true that a truer one cannot be found; and the movement of a sphere at one moment is never precisely equal to its movement at another, nor does it ever describe two circles similar and equal, even if from appearances the opposite may seem true.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Opposites, Circles, Two

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• It has been asserted that there is a separate species on the earth to correspond with each one of the stars. Now if the earth provides in each species a focus for the action of each star, why may not a similar provision be made among other heavenly bodies that are subject to the action of their fellows?

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Stars, Focus, Body

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• Paul indeed wanted to reveal the unknown God to the philosophers and then affirms of Him, that no human intellect can conceive Him. Therefore, God is revealed therein, that one knows that every intellect is too small to make itself a figuration or concept of Him. However, he names him God, or in Greek, theos.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Names, Greek, Philosopher

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• 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

  Doe, Unattainable, Hearing

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• All visible things would not claim as their king some color of their region, which is actually among the visible things of this region, but rather would say, he is the highest possible beauty of the most lucid and perfect color.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Kings, Color, Perfect

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• Every angle acknowledges that it is a likeness of true angularity, for [each angle] is angle not insofar as angle exists in itself but insofar as angle exists in something else, viz., in a surface. And so, true angularity is present in creatable and depictable angles as in a likeness of itself.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Angle, Surface, Acknowledge

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• Number, in consequence, includes all things that are capable of comparison. It is not then in quantity only that number produces proportion; it produces it in all things that are capable of agreement and differences in any way at all, whether substantially or accidentally.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Agreement, Differences, Numbers

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• A line partakes of the simplicity of a point more than does a surface; and a surface [partakes thereof more] than does a material object-as was evident. From this consideration of a point and a material object elevate yourself unto a likeness of True Being and of the universe; and by means of [this] quite clear symbolism [of a point] make a conjecture about what has been said.

  Nicholas of Cusa

  Mean, Symbolism, Simplicity

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