Saint Augustine Quotes

God does not expect us to submit our faith to him without reason, but the very limits of our reason make faith a necessity.

I count myself one of the number of those who write as they learn and learn as they write.

They the hazers or eversores were rightly called Overturners, since they had themselves been first overturned and perverted, tricked by those same devils who were secretly mocking them in the very acts by which they amused themselves in mocking and making fools of others.

Why is it that man desires to be made sad, beholding doleful and tragical things, which yet himself would by no means suffer?

God will not suffer man to have a knowledge of things to come for if he had prescience of his prosperity, he would be careless and if understanding of his adversity, he would be despairing and senseless

Where Scripture speaks of the world's creation, it is not plainly said whether or when the angels were created; but if mention is made, it is implicit under the name of "heaven," when it is said, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

Other sins find their vent in the accomplishment of evil deeds, whereas pride lies in wait for good deeds, to destroy them.

And yet I do love a kind of light, melody, fragrance, food, embracement when I love my God; for He is the light, the melody, the fragrance, the food, the embracement of my inner self - there where is a brillance that space cannot contain, a sound that time cannot carry away, a perfume that no breeze disperses, a taste undimisnished by eating, a clinging together that no saiety will sunder. This is what I love when I love my God.

It will not be held against you that you are ignorant against your will, but that you neglect to seek out what it is that makes you ignorant; not that you cannot bring together your wounded limbs, but that you reject Him that would heal them.

Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.

Tolle, lege: take up and read.

Except he be willing, man cannot believe.

Do not be afraid to throw yourself on the Lord! He will not draw back and let you fall! Put your worries aside and throw yourself on him; He will welcome you and heal you.

Whatever skills I have acquired, whatever gifts I have been given, I place them at Your service.

Sin is to a nature what blindness is to an eye. The blindness of an evil or defect which is a witness to the fact that the eye was created to see the light and, hence, the very lack of sight is the proof that the eye was meant... to be the one particularly capable of seeing the light. Were it not for this capacity, there would be no reason to think of blindness as a misforture.

I fell away from you, my God, and I went astray, too far astray from you, the support of my youth, and I became to myself a land of want.

We who preach and write, do so in a manner different from which the Scriptures have been written. We write while we make progress.We learn something new every day. We speak as we still knock for understanding...If anyone criticizes me when I have said what is right, he does me an injustice. But I would be more angry with the one who praises me and takes what I have written for Gospel truth than I would be with the one who criticizes me unfairly.

All plenty which is not my God is poverty to me.

Without God, man cannot, and without man, God will not.

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.

Did my infancy succeed another age of mine that dies before it? Was it that which I spent within my mother's womb?... And what before that life again, O God of my joy, was I anywhere or in any body?

I found thee not, O Lord, without, because I erred in seeking thee without that wert within.

You say to me 'Show me your God.' I answer you, 'Everything you see in your heart that might sadden God, remove.'

God grants us not always what we ask so as to bestow something preferable.

By and by never comes.

He cannot have God for his Father who will not have the Church for his mother.

A marriage without children is the world without the sun.

Men go forth to wonder at the height of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the ocean, the course of the stars-and forget to wonder at themselves. Beware of despairing about yourself: you are commanded to put your trust in God, and not in yourself.

Your best servant is the person who does not attend so much to hearing what he himself wants as to willing what he has heard from you.

It was in His flesh that Christ walked among us and it is His flesh that He has given us to eat for our salvation; but no one eats of this flesh without having first adored it . . . and not only do we not sin in thus adoring it, but we would be sinning if we did not do so.

Woman was merely man's helpmate, a function which pertains to her alone. She is not the image of God but as far as man is concerned, he is by himself the image of God.

The Devil often transforms himself into an angel to tempt men, some for their instruction, some for their ruin.

The entire life of a good Christian is in fact an exercise of holy desire. You do not yet see what you long for, but the very act of desiring prepares you, so that when he comes you may see and be utterly satisfied.

Whoever seems to himself to have understood the Scriptures in such a way that he does not build up that double love of God and neighbor has not yet understood.

It is this one Spirit who makes it possible for an infant to be regenerated . . . when that infant is brought to baptism; and it is through this one Spirit that the infant so presented is reborn. For it is not written, 'Unless a man be born again by the will of his parents' or 'by the faith of those presenting him or ministering to him,' but, 'Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit.' The water, therefore, manifesting exteriorly the sacrament of grace, and the Spirit effecting interiorly the benefit of grace, both regenerate in one Christ that man who was generated in Adam.

The heart of man is restless until he finds rest in Thee.

Angels are spirits, but it is not because they are spirits that they are angels. They become angels when they are sent. For the name angel refers to their office, not their nature. You ask the name of this nature, it is spirit; you ask its office, it is that of an Angel, which is a messenger.

We are certainly in a common class with the beasts; every action of animal life is concerned with seeking bodily pleasure and avoiding pain.

Hell was made for the inquisitive.

For so it is, O Lord my God, I measure it! But what it is I measure, I do not know.

God is not greater if you reverence Him, but you are greater if you serve Him.

How high a price we pay for the burden of habit! I am fitted for life here where I do not want to be, I want to live there but am unfit for it, and on both counts I am miserable.

We both exist and know that we exist, and rejoice in this knowledge.

It is not with respect to our convenience or discomfort, but with respect to their own nature that the creatures are glorifying to their Artificer.

For you [God] are infinite and never change. In you "today" never comes to an end: and yet our "today" does come to an end in you, because time, as well as everything else, exists in you. If it did not, it would have no means of passing. And since your years never come to an end, for you they are simply "today."

For what is time? ... Who can even in thought comprehend it, so as to utter a word about it? ... If no one asks me, I know: If I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not.

Christ held Himself in His hands when He gave His Body to His disciples saying: 'This is My Body.' No one partakes of this Flesh before he has adored it.

He that is jealous is not in love.