Quid est ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio. What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobodyasksme; but if Iamasked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.
Saint AugustineAnd I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, seeing He saith this of the Holy Spirit, Whom except we have, we can neither love God, nor keep His commandments?
Saint AugustineLate have I loved you, O beauty ever ancient, ever new. Late have I loved you. You have called to me, and have called out, and have shattered my deafness. You have blazed forth with light and have put my blindness to flight! You have sent forth fragrance, and I have drawn in my breath, and I pant after you. I have tasted you, and I hunger and thirst after you. You have touched me, and I have burned for your peace.
Saint AugustineLet us, on both sides, lay aside all arrogance. Let us not, on either side, claim that we have already discovered the truth. Let us seek it together as something which is known to neither of us. For then only may we seek it, lovingly and tranquilly, if there be no bold presumption that it is already discovered and possessed.
Saint AugustineChastity, or cleanness of heart, holds a glorious and distinguished place among the virtues, because she, alone, enables man to see God; hence Truth itself said, 'Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.'
Saint AugustineA Christian man is on his guard with respect to those who philosophize according to the elements of this world, not according to God, by Whom the world itself was made; for he is warned by the precept of the apostle and faithfully hears what has been said, 'Beware that no one deceive you through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the elements of the world'
Saint AugustineThe measure of charity may be taken from the want of desires. As desires diminish in the soul, charity increases in it; and when it no longer feels any desire, then it possesses perfect charity.
Saint AugustineOur Lord reserved to Himself certain things which He would do in due time in a manner outside the course and order of nature, so that they would wonder and be astonished at seeing not great but unusual things, who are unmoved by things daily seen. For the government of the world is a greater miracle than feeding five thousand men from five loaves; yet at the former no one wonders, the latter astonishes all men: not as a greater wonder, but as a rarer.
Saint AugustineIn the Catholic Church, there are many other things which most justly keep me in her bosom. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep (Jn 21:15-19), down to the present episcopate.
Saint AugustineEvery good and true Christian should understand that wherever he may find the truth it is his Lord's.
Saint AugustineYou never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back. Kindle and seize us. Be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love. Let us run.
Saint AugustineWhat 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 AugustineThe way to Christ is first through humility, second through humility, and third through humility. If humility does not precede and accompany and follow every good work we do, if it is not before us to focus on, it it is not beside us to lean upon, if it is not behind us to fence us in, pride will wrench from our hand any good deed we do at the very moment we do it.
Saint AugustineIndeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.
Saint AugustineIt is love that asks, that seeks, that knocks, that finds, and that is faithful to what it finds.
Saint AugustineNo one knows what he himself is made of, except his own spirit within him, yet there is still some part of him which remains hidden even from his own spirit; but you, Lord, know everything about a human being because you have made him...Let me, then, confess what I know about myself, and confess too what I do not know, because what I know of myself I know only because you shed light on me, and what I do not know I shall remain ignorant about until my darkness becomes like bright noon before your face.
Saint AugustineWhen regard for truth has been broken down or even slightly weakened, all things will remain doubtful.
Saint AugustineThough there are very many nations all over the earth, ...there are no more than two kinds of human society, which we may justly call two cities, ...one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God ....To the City of Man belong the enemies of God, ...so inflamed with hatred against the City of God.
Saint AugustineSuch is the strength of the burden of habit. Here I have the power to be but do not wish it. There I wish to be but lacks the power. On both grounds, I'm in misery.
Saint AugustineLet your old age be childlike, and your childhood like old age; that is, so that neither may your wisdom be with pride, nor your humility without wisdom.
Saint AugustineHear, O God. Alas, for man's sin! So saith man, and Thou pitiest him; for Thou madest him, but sin is in him Thou madest not. Who remindeth me of the sins of my infancy? for in Thy sight none is pure from sin, not even the infant whose life is but a day upon the earth.
Saint AugustineHumility must accompany all our actions, must be with us everywhere; for as soon as we glory in our good works they are of no further value to our advancement in virtue.
Saint AugustineThe custom of Mother Church in baptizing infants is certainly not to be scorned, nor is it to be regarded in any way as superfluous, nor is it to be believed that its tradition is anything except apostolic.
Saint AugustineThe peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. (City of God, Book 19)
Saint AugustineLet us leave a little room for reflection in our lives, room too for silence. Let us look within ourselves and see whether there is some delightful hidden place inside where we can be free of noise and argument. Let us hear the Word of God in stillness and perhaps we will then come to understand it.
Saint AugustineIn what is necessary, unity; in what is not necessary, liberty and in all things charity.
Saint AugustineO Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.
Saint AugustineWhat is more insane than to be partakers of the Sacraments of the Lord and not partakers of the words of the Lord? These men truly have to say: "In Thy Name we have eaten and drunk," and they will have to hear: "I do not know you!" (Luke 13:26-27). They eat and drink His Body and Blood in the Sacrament and do not recognize in the Gospel His members spread over the whole world, and for this reason they are not numbered among them at the Judgment.
Saint AugustineBaptism does not profit a man outside unity with the Church ... For many heretics also possess this Sacrament but not the fruits of salvation ... The benefits which flow from Baptism are necessarily fruits which belong to the true Church alone. Children Baptized in other communions cease to be members of the Church when, after reaching the age of reason, they make formal profession of heresy, as, for example, by receiving communion in a non-Catholic Church.
Saint AugustineGod does not give heed to the ambitiousness of our prayers, because he is always ready to give to us his light, not a visible light but an intellectual and spiritual one; but we are not always ready to receive it when we turn aside and down to other things out of a desire for temporal things.
Saint AugustineIn the house of God there is never ending festival; the angel choir makes eternal holiday; the presence of God's face gives joy that never fails.
Saint AugustineIf bodies please thee, praise God on occasion of them, and turn back thy love upon their Maker; lest in these things which please thee, thou displease. If souls please thee, be they loved in God: for they too are mutable, but in Him they are firmly established.
Saint AugustineSamson crushed himself and his enemies to death beneath the ruins of a building. He can only be excused on the grounds that the Spirit of the Lord, who wrought miracles through him, had bidden him to do so. But, apart from such men excepted by the command of a just law in general or of God, the very Source of justice, in a special case, any one who kills a human being, himself or another, is guilty of murder.
Saint Augustine