Canterbury Quotes

• Spare me through your mercy, do not punish me through your justice.

  Anselm of Canterbury

  Justice, Mercy, Spares

  73 Copy quote

• And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Canterbury Tales, Middle English

  The Canterbury Tales "The General Prologue" l. 308 (ca. 1387)

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• What is better than wisdom? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Good Woman, Canterbury Tales

  Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Tyrwhitt (1830). “The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer: With an Essay on His Language and Versification, an Introductory Discourse, Notes, and a Glossary by Tho. Tyrwhitt”, p.94

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• With empty hand no man can lure a hawk.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Men, Bird, Empty

  "The Canterbury Tales".

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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.

  Anselm of Canterbury

  Purity, Fitting, Should

  "Mary for Earth and Heaven" by William McLaughlin, p. 115-116, 2002.

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• I believe in order that I may understand.

  Anselm of Canterbury

  Faith, Believe, Order

  88 Copy quote

• Remove grace, and you have nothing whereby to be saved. Remove free will and you have nothing that could be saved.

  Anselm of Canterbury

  Grace, Free Will, Remove

  177 Copy quote

• Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
  The droghte of March hath perced to the roote.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Book, Hem, March

  The Canterbury Tales "The General Prologue" l. 1 (ca. 1387)

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• Yet do not miss the moral, my good men. For Saint Paul says that all that’s written well Is written down some useful truth to tell. Then take the wheat and let the chaff lie still.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Lying, Men, Missing

  Geoffrey Chaucer, John Urban Nicolson (2015). “The Canterbury Tales”, p.242, Courier Corporation

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• God is that, the greater than which cannot be conceived.

  Anselm of Canterbury

  God, Greater

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• For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For I believe this: unless I believe, I will not understand.

  Anselm of Canterbury

  Believe, Order, I Believe

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• The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Inspirational, Time, Long

  The Parliament of Fowls l. 1 (1380 - 1386)

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• Purity in body and heart May please some--as for me, I make no boast. For, as you know, no master of a household Has all of his utensils made of gold; Some are wood, and yet they are of use.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Heart, Gold, Use

  Geoffrey Chaucer, David Wright (1998). “The Canterbury Tales”, p.152, Oxford University Press, USA

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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.

  Anselm of Canterbury

  Life, Prayer, Truth

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• The guilty think all talk is of themselves.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Thinking, Guilt, Shame

  Geoffrey Chaucer (1966). “The Canterbury Tales”

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• The desert could not be claimed or owned — it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names before Canterbury existed, long before battles and treaties quilted Europe and the East ... All of us, even those with European homes and children in the distance, wished to remove the clothing of our countries. It was a place of faith. We disappeared into landscape.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Country, Children, Distance

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• What's the greatest enemy of Christianity to-day? Frozen meat. In the past only members of the upper classes were thoroughly sceptical, despairing, negative. Why? Among other reasons, because they were the only people who could afford to eat too much meat. Now there's cheap Canterbury lamb and Argentine chilled beef. Even the poor can afford to poison themselves into complete scepticism and despair.

  Aldous Huxley

  Past, Class, People

  Aldous Huxley (1955). “The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley”

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• In my time as Archbishop of Canterbury I've seen a growing sense of unity and mission.

  George Carey

  Unity, Growing, Missions

  "Archbishop of Canterbury speaks out". "The Religion Report" with Stephen Crittenden, www.abc.net.au. September 25, 2002.

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• PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Gentleman, Church, Palaces

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.171, 谷月社

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• This is to be observed of the Bishop of London, that, though apparently of a spirit somewhat austere, there is in his idiosyncrasy a strange fund of enthusiasm, a quality which ought never to be possessed by an Archbishop of Canterbury, or a Prime Minister of England. The Bishop of London sympathies with everything that is earnest; but what is earnest is not always true; on the contrary error is often more earnest than truth.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Errors, Quality, Bishops

  Benjamin Disraeli's letter to Queen Victoria, November 4, 1868.

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• We are not responsible for the behavior of anyone that goes contrary to what we teach, any more than the Pope of Rome or the Archbishop of Canterbury or a religious leader who teaches moral law and values can be charged with the errant behavior of a parishioner or congregant who may violate their moral teachings. That is on the individual.

  Louis Farrakhan

  Religious, Teaching, Rome

  Source: www.finalcall.com

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• I read a lot of 'The Canterbury Tales' on my phone last year, because I was cycling between three different editions, and I needed to have a middle-of-the-night edition for the insomniac reading.

  Rick Moody

  Reading, Night, Cycling

  Source: therumpus.net

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• In the aftermath of the recent wave action in the Indian Ocean, even the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williamson [sic], proved himself a latter-day Voltairean by whimpering that he could see how this might shake belief in a friendly creator. Williamson is of course a notorious fool, who does an almost perfect imitation of a bleating and frightened sheep, but even so, one is forced to rub one's eyes in astonishment. Is it possible that a grown man could live so long and still have his personal composure, not to mention his lifetime job description, upset by a large ripple of seawater?

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Jobs, Ocean

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• St George won 11 premierships with one Raper, imagine how Canterbury will go with 13.

  Darren Lockyer

  Rugby League, Imagine, League

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• What I worry about and don't like is the way in which the ideology of multiculturalism has declined into cultural relativism. I think that's very dangerous. When the Archbishop of Canterbury, for God's sake, says that you can't have one law for everybody... that's stupid.

  Salman Rushdie

  Stupid, Thinking, Law

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