Colorado State Motto: Nil Sine Numine

Colorado's state motto is Nil Sine Numine, a Latin phrase meaning Nothing Without the Deity. It was chosen at the constitutional convention of 1875–1876 and formally adopted as part of the Great Seal of Colorado when the first state legislature convened in 1877.

Colorado entered the Union on August 1, 1876 — exactly one hundred years after the Declaration of Independence — earning it the name the Centennial State. The motto's founders considered the centennial timing significant: the phrase asserts that the state's founding was not purely a human achievement.

"Nil Sine Numine" is Latin. The standard English translation is Nothing Without the Deity. Some sources give Nothing Without Divine Providence or Nothing Without God.

The differences come from the range of meaning carried by the Latin word numen, which can refer to a divine will, divine power, or a deity in general. No single English word captures all of it exactly, so translations vary slightly depending on the source.

Colorado was organized as a territory in 1861 and spent fourteen years building the population and economic base needed for statehood. A constitutional convention met in 1875 and drafted the state constitution, including the design for a state seal bearing the motto Nil Sine Numine. Colorado voters ratified the constitution in 1876, and Congress admitted Colorado as the 38th state on August 1, 1876.

The first state legislature convened in 1877 and formally adopted the Great Seal of the State of Colorado, codifying the motto as part of the seal design. The seal has been revised to standardize its rendering over time, with the most recent significant revision in 1964, but the motto has remained unchanged since 1877.

The phrase Nil Sine Numine was also the motto of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. It was familiar to educated men of the era, and the convention delegates chose it to express that the state's centennial entry into the Union carried meaning beyond coincidence.