Quotes from Bernard of Clairvaux

Believe one who has tried, you shall find a fuller satisfaction in the woods than in the books. The trees and the rocks will teach you that which you cannot hear from the masters.

As patience leads to peace, and study to science, so are humiliations the path that leads to humility.

What we love we shall grow to resemble.

Theirs is an endless road, a hopeless maze, who seek for goods before they seek for God.

God will either give us what we ask, or what He knows to be better for us.

When God forgives a sinner who humbly confesses his sin, the devil loses his dominion over the heart he had taken.

Therefore gird yourselves manfully and take up joyful arms for the name of God.

The reason for our loving God is God.

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

God will become visible as God's image is reborn in you.

The more I contemplate God, the more God looks on me. The more I pray to him, the more he thinks of me too.

For I have learnt for a fact that nothing so effectively obtains, retains and regains grace, as that we should always be found not high-minded before God, but filled with holy fear.

Our King [Jesus] is accused of treachery; it is said of him [by the Muslims] that he is not God, but that he falsely pretended to be something he was not.

Pride causes us to use our gifts as though they came from ourselves, not benefits received from God, and to usurp our benefactor's glory.

Have death always before your eyes as a salutary means of returning to God.

What does God hate or punish except self-will? Let self-will cease, and there will be no hell. On what does that fire feed except on self-will?

Hell is full of good wishes or desires.

There is no greater misery than false joys.

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.

He who labors as he prays lifts his heart to God with his hands.

Prayer is a virtue that prevaileth against all temptations.

Let your prayer for temporal blessings be strictly limited to things absolutely necessary.

What I know of the divine sciences and Holy Scriptures, I learned in woods and fields. I have no other masters than the beeches and the oaks.

Spiritual life is like living water that springs up from the very depths of our own spiritual experience. In spiritual life everyone has to drink from his or her own well.