Anselm of Canterbury Quotes
Anselm of Canterbury was an 11th and early 12th-century Italian-Norman Benedictine monk, philosopher, and theologian, who served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. He is regarded as one of the founders of medieval scholasticism and one of the most original Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages. The quotes below are attributed to Anselm of Canterbury, organized by topic.
Browse Anselm of Canterbury by topic
Anselm of Canterbury on God
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“Faith seeks understanding.”
Fides quaerens intellectum -
Attributed to Anselm of Canterbury:
“I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order that I may understand.”
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Attributed to Anselm of Canterbury:
“God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived.”
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Attributed to Anselm of Canterbury:
“There is no good without God; and no good is without God.”
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“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.”
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 123. -
“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.”
In Mary for Earth and Heaven: Essays on Mary and Ecumenism , 2002, William McLaughlin, Jill Pinnock, eds., Gracewing, ISBN 0852445563 ISBN 9780852445563 pp . 115-116.
Anselm of Canterbury on Knowledge
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“Fides quaerens intellectum”
Faith seeking understanding | Original title of the Proslogion (1078) -
“Original title of the Proslogion (1078)”
Fides quaerens intellectum -
“Proslogion , chapter 5 by Anselm of Canterbury, translated by Clement C. J. Webb (1903).”
But since it is better to have perception or to have omnipotence, to be pitiful or to be without passions, than not to have these attributes; how hast Thou perception, if Thou art not a body? or omnipotence, if Thou canst not do everything? or how art Thou at one and the same time pitiful and without passions? For if only bodily things have perception, since the senses with which we perceive belon -
“Ergo domine...credimus te esse aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit.”
Therefore, lord...we believe that you are something than which nothing greater can be thought. | Proslogion , ch. 2; Gregory Schufreider Confessions of a Rational Mystic: Anselm's Early Writings (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1994) pp. 324-5. -
“Proslogion , ch. 2; Gregory Schufreider Confessions of a Rational Mystic: Anselm's Early Writings (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1994) pp. 324-5.”
Ergo domine...credimus te esse aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit.
Anselm of Canterbury on Mind
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Attributed to Anselm of Canterbury:
“It is one thing for a thing to exist in the understanding, and another to understand a thing to exist.”
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“Therefore, lord...we believe that you are something than which nothing greater can be thought.”
Ergo domine...credimus te esse aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit.
Anselm of Canterbury on Truth
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Attributed to Anselm of Canterbury:
“If you seek the truth, follow the law and the rule of righteousness.”