John of Salisbury Quotes

• We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours.

  John of Salisbury

  Sight, Add, Sitting

  25 Copy quote

• Between a tyrant and a prince there is this single or chief difference, that the latter obeys the law and rules the people by its dictates, accounting himself as but their servant.

  John of Salisbury

  Law, Tyrants, Differences

  "Policraticus". Book by John of Salisbury, Bk. 4, ch. 1, 1159.

  12 Copy quote

• He who will not when he may, may not when he will.

  John of Salisbury

  May

  10 Copy quote

• A man is free in proportion to the measure of his virtues, and the extent to which he is free determines what his virtues can accomplish.

  John of Salisbury

  Men, Virtue, Proportion

  "Policraticus". Book by John of Salisbury, Bk. 7, ch. 25, 1159.

  8 Copy quote

• Let him who is not come to logic be plagued with continuous and everlasting filth

  John of Salisbury

  Filth, Logic, Everlasting

  12 Copy quote

• Just as the soul animates the body, so, in a way, meaning breathes life into a word.

  John of Salisbury

  Soul, Body, Way

  John of Salisbury (2009). “The Metalogicon: A Twelfth-century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium”, p.81, Paul Dry Books

  11 Copy quote

• Seeking is a necessary preliminary to finding, and one who cannot endure the hardship of inquiry cannot expect to harvest the fruit of knowledge.

  John of Salisbury

  Inquiry, Hardship, Fruit

  John of Salisbury (2009). “The Metalogicon: A Twelfth-century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium”, p.104, Paul Dry Books

  8 Copy quote

• The common people say, that physicians are the class
  of people who kill other men in the most polite and
  courteous manner.

  John of Salisbury

  Men, Class, People

  Policraticus Bk II, Ch. 29

  9 Copy quote

• Among all the liberal arts, the first is logic, and specifically that part of logic which gives initial instruction about words. ... [T]he word "logic" has a broad meaning, and is not restricted exclusively to the science of argumentative reasoning. [It includes] Grammar [which] is "the science of speaking and writing correctly-the starting point of all liberal studies."

  John of Salisbury

  Art, Writing, Science

  13 Copy quote

• Accurate reading on a wide range of subjects makes the scholar; careful selection of the better makes the saint.

  John of Salisbury

  Reading, Saint, Range

  John (of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres) (1979). “Policraticus: the statesman's book”, Frederick Ungar

  11 Copy quote

• Verily if with mine own eyes I had seen a priest of God, or any of those who wear the monastic garb, sinning, I would spread my cloak and hide him, that he might not be seen of any.

  John of Salisbury

  Eye, Might, Cloaks

  John (of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres) (1963). “The statesman's book of John of Salisbury: being the fourth, fifth, and sixth books, and selections from the seventh and eighth books, of the Policraticus”

  4 Copy quote

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