Bernard of Clairvaux Quotes

40 Sourced Quotes

Action and contemplation are very close companions; they live together in one house on equal terms. Martha and Mary are sisters.

Bernard of Clairvaux
Learn the lesson that, if you are to do the work of a prophet, what you need is not a sceptre but a hoe.

Bernard of Clairvaux
Slander is a poison which extinguishes charity, both in the slanderer and in the person who listens to it; so that a single calumny may prove fatal to an infinite number of souls; since it kills not only those who circulate it, but also all those who do not reject it.

Bernard of Clairvaux
Look at those detractors. Look at those dogs. They ridicule us for baptizing infants, praying for the dead, and asking the prayers of the saints. They lose no time in cutting Christ off from all kinds of people to both sexes, young and old, living and dead. They put infants outside the sphere of grace because they are too young to receive it, and those who are full grown because they find difficulty in preserving chastity. They deprive the dead of the help of the living, and rob the living of the prayers of the saints because they have died. God forbid! The Lord will not forsake his people who are as the sands of the sea, nor will he who redeemed all be content with a few, and those heretics....

Bernard of Clairvaux
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.

Bernard of Clairvaux
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.

Bernard of Clairvaux
There are three distinct comings of the Lord of which I know: His coming to men, His coming into men, and His coming against men.

Bernard of Clairvaux
The faith of simplicity is mocked, the secrets of Christ profaned, questions on the highest things are impertinently asked, the Fathers scorned because they were disposed to conciliate rather than solve such problems. Human reason is snatching everything to itself, leaving nothing for faith. It falls upon things which are beyond it... desecrates sacred things more than clarifies them. It does not unlock mysteries and symbols, but tears them asunder; it makes nought of everything to which it cannot gain access and disdains to believe all such things.

Bernard of Clairvaux
If then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than as a canal. For a canal spreads abroad water as it receives it, but a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus communicates, without loss to itself, its superabundant water. In the Church at the present day, we have many canals, few reservoirs.

Bernard of Clairvaux
I know by myself how incomprehensible God is, seeing I cannot comprehend the parts of my own being.

Bernard of Clairvaux