John of Salisbury

"Et pro virtutum habitu quilibet et liber est, et, quatenus est liber, eatenus virtutibus pollet."

"Exquisita lectio singulorum, doctissimum; cauta electio meliorum, optimum facit."

"Dicebat Bernardus Carnotensis nos esse quasi nanos gigantum humeris insidentes, ut possimus plura eis et remotiora videre, non utique proprii visus acumine, aut eminentia corporis, sed quia in altum subvehimur et extollimur magnitudine gigantea"

"Lex donum Dei est, æquitatis forma, norma justitiæ, divinæ voluntatis imago, salutis custodia, unio et consolidatio populorum, regula officiorum, exclusio et exterminatio vitiorum, violentiæ et totius injuriæ pœna."

"He would be a scholar in any age, and was head and shoulders above his own."

"He learnt to write what is regarded by competent critics as the purest Latin of the middle ages…The breadth of his reading in the Latin classics is astonishing."

"These Peripatetics accordingly made careful investigations into the nature of all things, so as to determine which I should be avoided as evil, discounted as useless, sought after as good,or preferred as better, and finally which are called "good" or "bad" according to circumstances. There thus developed two branches of philosophy, natural and moral, which are also called ethics and physics. But, through lack of scientific skill in argumentative reasoning, many absurdities were concluded. Thus Epicurus would have the world originate from atoms and a void, and would dispense with God as its author; whereas the Stoics asserted that matter is coeternal with God, and held that all sins are equally grave."

"To say that a thing "wholly pertains" to something else, or "does not pertain to it in any way," and that something "is predicated in a universal way" of something else, or "is completely alien to it" amount to the same thing. Nevertheless, while one form of expression is [now] in frequent use, the other has become practically obsolete, except so far as it may occasionally be admitted through mutual agreement. In Aristotles day it was perhaps customary to use both of these forms of expression, but now one has replaced the other [simply] because usage has so decreed."

"Faith is, indeed, most necessary in human affairs, as well as in religion Without faith, no contracts could be concluded, nor could any business be transacted. And without faith, where would be the basis for the divine reward of human merit? As it is, that faith which embraces the truths of religion deserves reward. Such faith is, according to the Apostle, "a substantiation of things to be hoped for, a testimonial to things that appear not." Faith is intermediate between opinion and science."

"Representative authorities relying considerably on the Metalogicon include: Friedrich Ueberweg, Heinrich Ritter, Barthelemy Haureau, Francois Picavet, Martin Grabmann, Etienne Gilson, Maurice de Wulf, and Karl Prantl in the history of philosophy; James Mark Baldwin and George S. Brettin the history of psychology; and Leon Maitre, Augusta Drane,Jules Alexandre Clerval, Hastings Rashdall, G. Robert, Charles S.Baldwin, Bigerius Thorlacius, Reginald Lane Poole, Bishop William Stubbs, J. E. Sandys, G. Pare, A. Brunet, and P. Tremblay, Eduard Norden, F. A. Wright, Charles Homer Haskins, and T. A. Sinclair in the history of education and learning."

"Est ergo tyranni et principis hæc differentia sola, quod hic legi obtemperat, et ejus arbitrio populum regit, cujus se credit ministrum."