Top 26 Quotes & Sayings by Anselm of Canterbury

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.

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

Thus you are just not because you give what is owed, but because you do what is appropriate to you as the highest good.

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

O supreme and unapproachable light! O whole and blessed truth, how far art thou from me, who am so near to thee! How far removed art thou from my vision, though I am so near to thine! Everywhere thou art wholly present, and I see thee not. In thee I move, and in thee I have my being; and I cannot come to thee. Thou art within me, and about me, and I feel thee not.

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

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.

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

Disasters teach us humility.

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

Idleness is the enemy of the soul.

A Prayer of Anselm My God, I pray that I may so know you and love you that I may rejoice in you. And if I may not do so fully in this life let me go steadily on to the day when I come to that fullness . . . Let me receive That which you promised through your truth, that my joy may be full.

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.

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

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

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

I believe in order that I may understand.

Lust desireth not procreation, but pleasure only.

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.

I do not try, Lord, to attain Your lofty heights, because my understanding is in no way equal to it. But I do desire to understand Your truth a little, that truth that my heart believes and loves. I do not seek to understand that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand. For I believe this also, that unless I believe, I shall not understand.

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.

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

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

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

There is no inconsistency in God's commanding us not to take upon ourselves what belongs to Him alone. For to execute vengeance belongs to none but Him who is Lord of all; for when the powers of the world rightly accomplish this end, God himself does it who appointed them for the purpose.

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.