Peter Abelard Quotes

#1. The purpose and cause of the incarnation was that
He might illuminate the world by His wisdom
and excite it to the love of Himself.

Peter Abelard

#2. By doubting we come to inquiry. By inquiry we come to Truth.

Peter Abelard

#3. I preferred the weapons of dialectic to all the other teachings of philosophy, and armed with these, I chose the conflicts of disputation rather than the trophies of war.

Peter Abelard

#4. By doubting we come to questioning, and by questioning we perceive the truth,

Peter Abelard

#5. Under the pretext of study we spent our hours in the happiness of love, and learning held out to us the secret opportunities that our passion craved. Our speech was more of love than of the books which lay open before us; our kisses far outnumbered our reasoned words.

Peter Abelard

#6. Logic has made me hated in the world.

Peter Abelard

#7. The men who abandon themselves to the passions of this miserable life, are compared in Scripture to beasts.

Peter Abelard

#8. The first key to wisdom is assiduous and frequent questioning.

Peter Abelard

#9. The Son of God took our nature, and in it took upon himself to teach us by both word and example even to the point of death, thus binding us to himself through love.

Peter Abelard

#10. In comparing your sorrows with mine, you may discover that yours are in truth nought.. and so shall you come to bear them the more easily grateful that they are not worse.

Peter Abelard

#11. By doubting we are led to enquire, and by enquiry we perceive the truth.

Peter Abelard

#12. It is by doubting that we come to investigate, and by investigating that we recognize the truth.

Peter Abelard

#13. Language is generated by the intellect and generates the intellect.

Peter Abelard

#14. Nothing can be believed unless it is first understood; and that for any one to preach to others that which either he has not understood nor they have understood is absurd.

Peter Abelard

#15. Be precise in the use of words and expect precision from others

Peter Abelard

#16. We call an intention good which is right in itself, but the action is good, not because it contains within it some good, but because it issues from a good intention.

Peter Abelard