Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.

Fortitude is the disposition of soul which enables us to despise all inconveniences and the loss of things not in our power.

Furthermore, what profit was it to me that I, rascally slave of selfish ambitions that I was, read and understood by myself as many books as I could get concerning the so-called liberal arts?...I had turned my back to the light and my face to the things it illuminated, and so no light played upon my own face, or on the eyes that perceived them.

Nothing conquers except truth and the victory of truth is love.

Dilige et quod vis fac. (Love and then what you will, do.)

We made bad use of immortality, and so ended up dying; Christ made good use of mortality, so that we might end up living.

O eternal truth and true love and beloved eternity! You are my God; to you I sigh by day and by night. And when I first knew you, you raised me up so that I could see that there was something to see and that I still lacked the ability to see it. And you beat back the weakness of my sight, blazing upon me with your rays, and I trembled in love and in dread.