Bernard of Clairvaux Quotes
1090–1153 France
St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 – August 21 1153), abbot of Clairvaux, was a highly influential French churchman, theologian and mystic.
- France
- Non-fiction authors
- Theologians
Also known as: St Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Bernard
Random Bernard of Clairvaux quote
25 quotes
Believe me, you will find more lessons in the woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you what you cannot learn from masters.
Human reason is snatching everything to itself, leaving nothing for faith.
One cannot now say, the priest is as the people, for the truth is that the people are not so bad as the priest.
He who prays and labours lifts his heart to God with his hands.
It is commonly said: What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve.
God cannot suffer, but is not without compassion.
Sermons on the Song of Songs (1135)
God cannot suffer, but he can have compassion.
He that will teach himself in school, becomes a scholar to a fool.
It is a misery to be born, a pain to live, a trouble to die.
Slander is a poison which extinguishes charity, both in the slanderer and in the persons who listen to it.
The reason for loving God is God Himself; and the measure of our love for Him is to love Him without measure.
On Loving God (1128)
Humility is, of all graces, the chiefest when it does not know itself to be a grace at all.
They ridicule us for baptizing infants, praying for the dead, and asking the prayers of the saints.
Sermons on the Song of Songs (1135)
It’s not as if grace did one half of the work and free choice the other; each does the whole work, in its own peculiar contribution.
Nothing can work me damage except myself. The harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real sufferer but by my own fault.
That beast of the Apocalypse, to whom is given a mouth speaking blasphemies, and to make war with the saints, is sitting on the throne of Peter, like a lion ready for his prey.
What of the souls already released from their bodies? We believe that they are overwhelmed in that vast sea of eternal light and of luminous eternity
On Loving God (1128)
Among us on the earth there is His memory; but in the Kingdom of heaven His very Presence. That Presence is the joy of those who have already attained to beatitude; the memory is the comfort of us who are still wayfarers, journeying towards the Fatherland.
On Loving God (1128)
I, for one, shall speak about those obstinate Greeks, who are with us and against us, united in faith and divided in peace, though in truth their faith may stray from the straight path.
My Beloved, look on me;
Turn me wholly unto Thee;
"Be thou whole," say openly,
"I forgive thee all."