Anselm of Canterbury Quotes
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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.
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Spare me through your mercy, do not punish me through your justice.
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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.
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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.
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Disasters teach us humility.
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Remove grace, and you have nothing whereby to be saved. Remove free will and you have nothing that could be saved.
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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.
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It is impossible to save one's soul without devotion to Mary and without her protection.
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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.
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God hath promised pardon to him that repenteth, but he hath not promised repentance to him that sinneth.
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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.
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Therefore Lord God, you are more truly omnipotent, because you have no power through impotence and nothing can be against you.
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It is, therefore, not proper for God thus to pass over sin unpunished.
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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.
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A single Mass offered for oneself during life may be worth more than a thousand celebrated for the same intention after death.
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Ergo domine...credimus te esse aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit.
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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.
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Let no worldly prosperity divert you, nor any worldly adversity restrain you from His praise.
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Idleness is the enemy of the soul.
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Lust desireth not procreation, but pleasure only.
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Therefore Lord, not only are you that than which a greater cannot be thought but you are also something greater than can be thought.
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I believe in order that I may understand.
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And indeed we believe you [God] to be something than which a greater cannot be conceived.
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God is that, the greater than which cannot be conceived.