Home / Quotes / Quote by Nicholas of Cusa

Quote by Nicholas of Cusa

“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.”

Quote by Nicholas of Cusa

Author

Nicholas of Cusa

Nicholas of Cusa, born in 1401 and died on August 11, 1464, was a versatile scholar, philosopher, theologian, and mathematician whose ideas had a profound impact on posterity, particularly in the development of humanism and the scientific method. more

You May Also Like

“But if you search further, you find in yourself nothing similar to God, but rather you affirm that God stands above all this as cause, origin, and the light of life of your intellective soul.”

Ifs Soul Light Causes

Author:Nicholas of Cusa

“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.”

Mean Ends Able Desire Purpose Natural Existence Objects Particular Activity All Things Weight Serving Faculty Inclination Discernment Suitable Compatible Fulfilment

Author:Nicholas of Cusa

“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.”

Way Differences Numbers Produce Capable Consequence All Things Proportion Comparison Agreement Quantity

Author:Nicholas of Cusa

“Nothing could be more beneficial for even the most zealous searcher for knowledge than his being in fact most learned in that very ignorance which is peculiarly his own; and the better a man will have known his own ignorance, the greater his learning will be.”

Men Facts Known Greater Ignorance Beneficial Zealous Searchers

Author:Nicholas of Cusa

“The world has no circumference. It would certainly have a circumference if it had a centre, in which case it would contain within itself its own beginning and end; and that would mean that there was some other thing which imposed a limit to the world - another being existing in space outside the world. All of these conclusions are false. Since, then, the world cannot be enclosed within a material circumference and centre, it is unintelligible without God as its centre and circumference.”

Ifs World Mean Ends Space Cases Materials Limits Conclusion Centre Without God Beginnings And Ends

Author:Nicholas of Cusa

“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.”

Ifs May Doe Two Moments Seems Found Given Movement Equal Opposites Appearance Circles Spheres

Author:Nicholas of Cusa

“There will be a machina mundi whose centre, so to speak, is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere, for God is its circumference and centre and He is everywhere and nowhere.”

Author:Nicholas of Cusa

“Nor is the darkness of colour a proof of the earth's baseness; for the brightness of the sun, which is visible to us, would not be perceived by anyone who might be in the sun.”

Might Earth Darkness Sun Proof Colour Visible Brightness Baseness

Author:Nicholas of Cusa

“The fact is that man has no longing for any other nature but desires only to be perfect in his own.”

Men Facts Desire Perfect Longing

Author:Nicholas of Cusa

“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?”

Ifs May Has Beens Made Body Action Earth Stars Focus Subjects Fellows Species Heavenly Provision Heavenly Bodies

Author:Nicholas of Cusa