“Nicholas of Cusa has understood and seen much, and is one of the most outstanding geniuses who ever breathed air. But regarding his apprehension of the truth, he was like a swimmer in the midst of a tempestuous river, tossed high and low; because he did not see the light continuously, and did not swim quietly or calmly, but intermittently, and by intervals. The reason for this is, he had not removed all of the false principles he’d imbibed from the common wisdom from which he’d parted; so perhaps, through force of industry, he came to correctly title his work On Learned Ignorance or The Ignorant Doctrine.”— Giordano Bruno (1584), On the Infinite, the Universe, and the Worlds [1]
“Cusa was the first modern thinker.”— Ernst Cassirer (1927), Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance
“Cusanus owned more works by Lull than any other single author.”— Pauline Watts (1982), Nicolaus Cusanus: a Fifteenth-Century Vision of Man (pg. 16)
“Each star makes its own individual world.”— Nicholas of Cusa (c.1450), Learned Ignorance (2.12); cited by Otto Guericke (1663), in New Experiments on the Vacuum of Space (pg. 363), in support of his view and the view of Giordano Bruno, that fixed stars are moving suns with their own planetary systems
“There is present in all things a natural desire to exist in the best manner in which the condition of each thing's nature permits this. And [we see that all things] act toward this end and have instruments adapted thereto. They have an innate sense of judgment which serves the purpose of knowing. [They have this] in order that their desire not be in vain but be able to attain rest in that [respective] object which is desired by the propensity of each thing's own nature.”— Nicholas of Cusa (1450), Learned Ignorance (Ѻ)
“It would always seem to each person, whether he were on the earth, the sun, or another star, that he was at the ‘immovable’ center, so to speak, and that all other things were moved … if he were on the sun, he would fix a set of poles in relation to himself; if on the earth, another; on the moon, another; on mars, another; and so on.”— Nicholas of Cusa (c.1450), Publication (Ѻ); paraphrased, without citation, by Giordano Bruno (1584) via the voice of Fracastorio in On the Infinite, the Universe, and the Worlds (pgs. 114-15)