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Since beings desire to exist, because to exist is a good thing: they desire the One without which they cannot exist.

Nicholas of Cusa

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Nicholas of Cusa
Died: 1464
Died: August 12
Astronomer
Catholic Priest
Diplomat
Jurist
Mathematician
Minister
Philosopher
Politician
Theologian
Writer
Cusanus
Nikolaus Krebs
Nikolaus von Kues
Nikolaus Cusanus
Nikolaus Cryfftz
Nikolaus von Cusa
Nicholas of Kues
P. Nicolavm Cvsanvm
Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa
Nicolaus Cusanus
Nicolas of Cusa
Beings
Since
Desire
Cannot
Without
Thing
Good
Exist

More quotes by Nicholas of Cusa

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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
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Time is to eternity as an image is to its exemplar, and those things which are temporal bear a resemblance to those things which are eternal.
Nicholas of Cusa
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God says to man: 'Be thou thyself, and I shall be thine.'
Nicholas of Cusa
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With the senses man measures perceptible things, with the intellect he measures intelligible things, and he attains unto supra-intelligible things transcendently.
Nicholas of Cusa
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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
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That that which is neither true nor truthlike does not exist. Now, whatever exists, exists otherwise in something else than it exists in itself.
Nicholas of Cusa
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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
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Divinity is in all things in such a way that all things are in divinity.
Nicholas of Cusa
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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
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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.
Nicholas of Cusa
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In creating the world, God used arithmetic, geometry, and likewise astronomy.
Nicholas of Cusa
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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
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For when we say that what is different is different, we affirm that what is different is the same as itself. For what is different can be different only through the Absolute Same, through which all that is is both the same as itself and other than another.
Nicholas of Cusa
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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
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All we know of the truth is that the absolute truth, such as it is, is beyond our reach.
Nicholas of Cusa
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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
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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
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In every science certain things must be accepted as first principles if the subject matter is to be understood and these first postulates rest upon faith.
Nicholas of Cusa
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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.
Nicholas of Cusa
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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.
Nicholas of Cusa