A brotherly person rejoices on my account when he approves me, but when he disapproves, he is loving me. To such people I will reveal myself. They will take heart from my good traits, and sigh with sadness at my bad ones. My good points are instilled by you and are your gifts. My bad points are my faults and your judgements on them. Let them take heart from the one and regret the other. Let both praise and tears ascend in your sight from brotherly hearts, your censers. ...But you Lord...Make perfect my imperfections.
Saint AugustineIf God seems slow in responding, it is because He is preparing a better gift. He will not deny us. God withholds what you are not yet ready for. He wants you to have a lively desire for His greatest gifts. All of which is to say, pray always and do not lose heart.
Saint AugustineAll diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to demons; chiefly do they torment freshly-baptized Christians, yea, even the guiltless new-born infants.
Saint AugustineNo one indeed believes anything unless he has first thought that it it to be believed.
Saint AugustineA thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.
Saint AugustineIf I am given a formula, and I am ignorant of its meaning, it cannot teach me anything, but if I already know it what does the formula teach me?
Saint AugustineDo you wish to be great? Then begin by being little. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation. Modest humility is beauty's crown.
Saint AugustineCyprian was not issuing a new decree but was keeping to the most solid belief of the Church in order to correct some who thought that infants ought not be baptized before the eighth day after their birth. . . . He agreed with certain of his fellow bishops that a child is able to be duly baptized as soon as he is born.
Saint AugustineDon't let your life give evidence against your tongue. Sing with your voices... sing also with your conduct.
Saint AugustineI do not comprehend all that I am. Is the mind, therefore, too limited to possess itself?
Saint AugustineDrunkenness is a flattering devil, a sweet poison, a pleasant sin, which whosoever hath, hath not himself, which whosoever doth commit, doth not commit sin, but he himself is wholly sin.
Saint AugustineDon't hold yourselves cheap, seeing that the creator of all things and of you estimates your value so high, so dear, that he pours out for you every day the most precious blood of his only-begotten Son.
Saint AugustineWhoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.
Saint AugustineGod is not what you imagine or what you think you understand. If you understand you have failed.
Saint Augustine"Otherwise grace is no more grace," since it is bestowed on us, not because we have done good works, but that we may be able to do them.
Saint AugustineYour first task is to be dissatisfied with yourself, fight sin, and transform yourself into something better. Your second task is to put up with the trials and temptations of this world that will be brought on by the change in your life and to persevere to the very end in the midst of these things.
Saint AugustineI will plant my feet on that step where my parents put me as a child, until self-evident truth comes to light.
Saint AugustineAn apt and true reply was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride. "What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor."
Saint AugustineIn all your movements, let nothing be evident that would offend the eyes of another.
Saint AugustineO that men would know themselves to be men; and that he that glorieth would glory in the Lord.
Saint AugustineI was unhappy and so is every soul unhappy which is tied to its love for mortal things; when it loses them, it is torn in pieces, and it is then that it comes to realize the unhappiness which was there even before it lost them.
Saint AugustineLet our lives be good, and the times are good. We make our times; such as we are, such are the times.
Saint AugustineHe who devoutly hears holy Mass will receive a great vigor to enable him to resist mortal sin, and there shall be pardoned to him all venial sins which he may have committed up to that hour.
Saint AugustineNinety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they would. The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect that much.
Saint AugustineWoman does not possess the image of God in herself but only when taken together with the male who is her head, so that the whole substance is one image. But when she is assigned the role as helpmate, a function that pertains to her alone, then she is not the image of God. But as far as the man is concerned, he is by himself alone the image of God just as fully and completely as when he and the woman are joined together into one.
Saint AugustineTo fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.
Saint AugustineThe truth is like a lion; you donโt have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.
Saint AugustineNow, may our God be our hope. He Who made all things is better than all things. He Who made all beautiful things is more beautiful than all of them. He Who made all mighty things is more mighty than all of them. He Who made all great things is greater than all of them. Learn to love the Creator in His creature, and the maker in what He has made.
Saint Augustine