Anselm Of Canterbury Quotes

For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For I believe this: unless I believe, I will not understand.

God does not delay to hear our prayers because He has no mind to give; but that, by enlarging our desires, He may give us the more largely.

Remove grace, and you have nothing whereby to be saved. Remove free will and you have nothing that could be saved.

God is that, the greater than which cannot be conceived.

A single Mass offered for oneself during life may be worth more than a thousand celebrated for the same intention after death.

Let no worldly prosperity divert you, nor any worldly adversity restrain you from His praise.

God often works more by the life of the illiterate seeking the things that are God's, than by the ability of the learned seeking the things that are their own.

I believe in order that I may understand.

Therefore Lord, not only are you that than which a greater cannot be thought but you are also something greater than can be thought.

Idleness is the enemy of the soul.

Spare me through your mercy, do not punish me through your justice.

Disasters teach us humility.

God hath promised pardon to him that repenteth, but he hath not promised repentance to him that sinneth.

It is impossible to save one's soul without devotion to Mary and without her protection.

God was conceived of a most pure Virgin ... it was fitting that the virgin should be radiant with a purity so great that a greater purity cannot be conceived.

Lust desireth not procreation, but pleasure only.

And indeed we believe you [God] to be something than which a greater cannot be conceived.

But a problem occurs about nothing. For that from which something is made is a cause of the thing made from it; and, necessarily,every cause contributes some assistance to the effect's existence.

Therefore Lord God, you are more truly omnipotent, because you have no power through impotence and nothing can be against you.

I have written the little work that follows . . . in the role of one who strives to raise his mind to the contemplation of God and one who seeks to understand what he believes.

It is, therefore, not proper for God thus to pass over sin unpunished.