Bernard of Chartres Quotes
Bernard of Chartres was a French Latin Platonist of the early twelfth century, master and chancellor of the cathedral school of Chartres, and one of the most influential teachers of the so-called twelfth-century Renaissance. None of his own writings have survived in any complete form, but his teaching is preserved in the Metalogicon of his pupil John of Salisbury, who attributes to Bernard the famous image of his contemporaries as dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants who can see further than the ancients precisely because they stand on their accumulated learning. The quotes below are attributed to Bernard of Chartres, organized by topic.
Bernard of Chartres on Knowledge
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Attributed to Bernard of Chartres:
“We are dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants; we see more, and farther, but only because they have raised us up.”
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Attributed to Bernard of Chartres:
“The classical texts are our common inheritance; we read them so that we may not be impoverished.”
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Attributed to Bernard of Chartres:
“What the ancients have shown us with care, we should not despise from haste.”
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Attributed to Bernard of Chartres:
“The cathedral school is a workshop, not a stage; the work is done, not displayed.”
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Attributed to Bernard of Chartres:
“He who has not first read with patience cannot teach with profit.”
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“Dicebat Bernardus Carnotensis nos esse quasi nanos gigantum humeris insidentes, ut possimus plura eis et remotiora videre, non utique proprii visus acumine, aut eminentia corporis, sed quia in altum subvehimur et extollimur magnitudine gigantea.”
Bernard of Chartres used to say that we [the Moderns] are like dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants [the Ancients], and thus we are able to see more and farther than the latter. And this is not at all because of the acuteness of our sight or the stature of our body, but because we are carried aloft and elevated by the magnitude of the giants. | In John of Salisbury, Metalogicon (1159) bk. 3, -
“Bernard of Chartres used to say that we [the Moderns] are like dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants [the Ancients], and thus we are able to see more and farther than the latter. And this is not at all because of the acuteness of our sight or the stature of our body, but because we are carried aloft and elevated by the magnitude of the giants.”
Dicebat Bernardus Carnotensis nos esse quasi nanos gigantum humeris insidentes, ut possimus plura eis et remotiora videre, non utique proprii visus acumine, aut eminentia corporis, sed quia in altum subvehimur et extollimur magnitudine gigantea. -
“In John of Salisbury, Metalogicon (1159) bk. 3, ch. 4. Tr. Scott D. Troyan, Medieval Rhetoric: A Casebook (2004), p. 10 Compare: Isaac Newton , Letter to Robert Hooke (15 February 1676), "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants .”
Dicebat Bernardus Carnotensis nos esse quasi nanos gigantum humeris insidentes, ut possimus plura eis et remotiora videre, non utique proprii visus acumine, aut eminentia corporis, sed quia in altum subvehimur et extollimur magnitudine gigantea.