diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index 09c05a5bf..fcec61f7f 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ Bugs fixed
 * #2287: ``sphinx.transforms.Locale`` always uses rst parser. Sphinx i18n feature should
   support parsers that specified source_parsers.
 * #2290: Fix ``sphinx.ext.mathbase`` use of amsfonts may break user choice of math fonts
+* #2324: Print a hint how to increase the recursion limit when it is hit.
 
 
 Release 1.3.5 (released Jan 24, 2016)
diff --git a/sphinx/cmdline.py b/sphinx/cmdline.py
index 21422be51..2ba4c4f09 100644
--- a/sphinx/cmdline.py
+++ b/sphinx/cmdline.py
@@ -270,6 +270,14 @@ def main(argv):
                 print(red('The full traceback has been saved in %s, if you want '
                           'to report the issue to the developers.' % tbpath),
                       file=error)
+            elif isinstance(err, RuntimeError) and 'recursion depth' in str(err):
+                print(red('Recursion error:'), file=error)
+                print(terminal_safe(text_type(err)), file=error)
+                print(file=error)
+                print('This can happen with very large or deeply nested source '
+                      'files.  You can carefully increase the default Python '
+                      'recursion limit of 1000 in conf.py with e.g.:', file=error)
+                print('    import sys; sys.setrecursionlimit(1500)', file=error)
             else:
                 print(red('Exception occurred:'), file=error)
                 print(format_exception_cut_frames().rstrip(), file=error)