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Bernard of Clairvaux Quotes (1090-1153)
Theologian
About Bernard of Clairvaux
St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 – August 21 1153), abbot of Clairvaux, was a highly influential French churchman, theologian and mystic. He was one of the founders of the Cistercian, or Bernardine, monastic order.
Best Bernard of Clairvaux Quotes
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Bernard of Clairvaux quotes.
“Qui se sibi magistrum constituit, stulto se discipulum subdit.”
“Impassibilis est Deus, sed non incompassibilis.
• Alternate translation: God cannot suffer, but He can have compassion.”
• Alternate translation: God cannot suffer, but He can have compassion.”
“What of the souls already released from their bodies? We believe that they are overwhelmed in that vast sea of eternal light and of luminous eternity”
“Bestia illa de Apocalypsi, cui datum est os loquens blasphemias, et bellum gerere cum sanctis (Apoc. XIII, 5-7), Petri cathedram occupat, tanquam leo paratus ad praedam.”
“Do what Jesus says,... what he commands through his ministers who are in the Church [see 1 Cor 6:4]. Be subject to his vicars, your leaders, not only those who are gentle and kind, but even those who are overbearing [see 1 Pt 2:18].”
“Among us on the earth there is His memory; but in the Kingdom of heaven His very Presence. That Presence is the joy of those who have already attained to beatitude; the memory is the comfort of us who are still wayfarers, journeying towards the Fatherland.”
“It’s not as if grace did one half of the work and free choice the other; each does the whole work, in its own peculiar contribution. Grace does the whole work, and so does free choice – with this one qualification: That whereas the whole is done in free choice, so is the whole done of grace.”
“"My burden is light," said the blessed Redeemer, a light burden indeed, which carries him that bears it. I have looked through all nature for a resemblance of this, and seem to find a shadow of it in the wings of a bird, which are indeed borne by the creature, and yet support her flight towards heaven.”
“Prostrate, see Thy cross I grasp,
And Thy pierced feet I clasp;
Gracious Jesus, spurn me not;
On me, with compassion fraught,
Let Thy glances fall.
From thy cross of agony,
My Beloved, look on me;
Turn me wholly unto Thee;
"Be thou whole," say openly,
"I forgive thee all."”
And Thy pierced feet I clasp;
Gracious Jesus, spurn me not;
On me, with compassion fraught,
Let Thy glances fall.
From thy cross of agony,
My Beloved, look on me;
Turn me wholly unto Thee;
"Be thou whole," say openly,
"I forgive thee all."”
“Obey your bishop! “Obey those set over you [Heb 13:17],” the teachers of the Church…. I remind you, my dear friends, of what I said when I was with you: do not receive any outside or unknown preacher, unless he be sent by your bishop or preaches with the permission of the pope. For “how shall they preach unless they are sent [Rom 10:15]?””
“'''''Sunt namque qui scire volunt eo fine tantum ut sciant; et turpis curiositas est.''' Et sunt qui scire volunt, ut sciantur ipsi; et turpis vanitas est. ... Et sunt item qui scire volunt, ut scientiam suam vendant, verbi causa, pro pecunia, pro honoribus; et turpis quaestus est. Sed sunt quoque qui scire volunt, ut aedificent; et caritas est. Et item qui scire volunt, ut aedificentur; et prudentia est.''”
“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.”
“I rejoiced so greatly when I heard of your answer in the case of some who seemed to be filled with extravagant ambition
for the office of legate, and to hope for it with impudence, even more than I can say. And not only I but all who love your name rejoiced with exceeding great joy. Moreover, when I read your letter written in the cause of the Church of Rodez,
then was my mouth filled with laughter and my tongue with joy. Such things as these are worthy of your Apostleship, they honour the highest See, they are just what is becoming to the Bishop of the world. Whence, also, I bow my knees to the Author of your unique Primacy...
In truth, you have been raised to this chair for the fall and rising again of many.”
for the office of legate, and to hope for it with impudence, even more than I can say. And not only I but all who love your name rejoiced with exceeding great joy. Moreover, when I read your letter written in the cause of the Church of Rodez,
then was my mouth filled with laughter and my tongue with joy. Such things as these are worthy of your Apostleship, they honour the highest See, they are just what is becoming to the Bishop of the world. Whence, also, I bow my knees to the Author of your unique Primacy...
In truth, you have been raised to this chair for the fall and rising again of many.”
“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....”
“I would count him blessed and holy to whom such rapture has been vouchsafed in this mortal life, for even an instant to lose thyself,
as if thou wert emptied and lost and swallowed up in God, is no human love; it is celestial.
But if sometimes a poor mortal feels that heavenly joy for a rapturous moment, then this wretched life envies his happiness,
the malice of daily trifles disturbs him, this body of death weighs him down, the needs of the flesh are imperative,
the weakness of corruption fails him, and above all brotherly love calls him back to duty.
Alas! that voice summons him to re-enter his own round of existence; and he must ever cry out lamentably,
‘O Lord, I am oppressed: undertake for me’ (Isa. 38.14); and again, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ (Rom. 7.24)
as if thou wert emptied and lost and swallowed up in God, is no human love; it is celestial.
But if sometimes a poor mortal feels that heavenly joy for a rapturous moment, then this wretched life envies his happiness,
the malice of daily trifles disturbs him, this body of death weighs him down, the needs of the flesh are imperative,
the weakness of corruption fails him, and above all brotherly love calls him back to duty.
Alas! that voice summons him to re-enter his own round of existence; and he must ever cry out lamentably,
‘O Lord, I am oppressed: undertake for me’ (Isa. 38.14); and again, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ (Rom. 7.24)
Seeing that the Scripture saith, God has made all for His own glory (Isa. 43.7), surely His creatures ought to conform themselves, as much as they can, to His will. In Him should all our affections center, so that in all things we should seek only to do His will, not to please ourselves. And real happiness will come, not in gratifying our desires or in gaining transient pleasures, but in accomplishing God’s will for us: even as we pray every day: ‘Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven’ (Matt. 6.10). O chaste and holy love! O sweet and gracious affection! O pure and cleansed purpose, thoroughly washed and purged from any admixture of selfishness, and sweetened by contact with the divine will! To reach this state is to become deified. As a drop of water poured into wine loses itself, and takes the color and savor of wine; or as a bar of iron, heated red-hot, becomes like fire itself, forgetting its own nature; or as the air, radiant with sun-beams, seems not so much to be illuminated as to be light itself; so in the saints all human affections melt away by some unspeakable transmutation into the will of God. For how could God be all in all, if anything merely human remained in man? The substance will endure, but in another beauty, a higher power, a greater glory. When will that be? Who will see, who possess it? ‘When shall I come to appear before the presence of God?’ (Ps. 42.2). ‘My heart hath talked of Thee, Seek ye My face: Thy face, Lord, will I seek’ (Ps. 27.8). Lord, thinkest Thou that I, even I shall see Thy holy temple?”
Bernard of Clairvaux Quotes by Topic
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Bernard of Clairvaux on Medieval II: Total War 2 quotes
“Therefore gird yourselves manfully and take up joyful arms for the name of Christ.”
Bernard of Clairvaux on Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms 2 quotes
“Therefore gird yourselves manfully and take up joyful arms for the name of Christ.”
Bernard of Clairvaux on Beatitude
“Among us on the earth there is His memory; but in the Kingdom of heaven His very Presence. That Presence is the joy of those who have already attained to beatitude; the memory is the comfort of us who are still wayfarers, journeying towards the Fatherland.”
Quotes About Bernard of Clairvaux
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Bernard of Clairvaux from others.
Steven Runciman on Bernard of Clairvaux
“It is difficult now to look back across the centuries and appreciate the tremendous impact of his personality on all who knew him. The fire of his eloquence has been quenched in the written words that survive. As a theologian and a controversialist he now appears rigid and a little crude and unkind. But from the day in 1115 when, at the age of twenty-five, he was appointed Abbot of Clairvaux, till his death nearly forty years later he was the dominant influence in the religious and political life of western Europe.”
James Meeker Ludlow on Bernard of Clairvaux 12 quotes
“There were some men whose genius and virtues would have adorned any age. Among these was... Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), whose pen was to control Christendom for a generation, and whose sainthood shines through all ages, was in the nursery when the soldiers of the cross started for the East. There were noble women, too. Bernard owed much of his talent and virtue to his mother, Aletta, whose memory is the imperishable ornament of womanhood. ...The intellectuality of this period exercised itself almost entirely with theological and religious subjects. Men in seclusion elaborated and defended existing church doctrines and gave pious flight to their imaginations. But of literature as such there was none; even the Troubadours had not begun to rhyme the Provencal tongue. The hot breath of the crusades themselves forced the debris of the Latin to send out its first flowers of poesy.”
Misattributed Quotes
Quotes mistakenly credited to Bernard of Clairvaux
“Before a vast assembly in 1097 Pope Urban II said: "If you must have blood, bathe your hands In the blood of infidels. ...soldiers of hell become soldiers of the living God." Whereupon the multitude shouted: "It Is the will of God." Bernard, the holiest man of his century, cried out: "...Cursed be he who does not stain his sword with blood." In 1188 the Pope ordered prayers against the Saracens to be said daily.”
About Bernard of Clairvaux
St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 – August 21 1153), abbot of Clairvaux, was a highly influential French churchman, theologian and mystic. He was one of the founders of the Cistercian, or Bernardine, monastic order.