For it is really better for us not to know a thing, because [God] has not revealed it to us, than to know it according to man’s wisdom, because he has been bold enough to assume it.

Against Him those women sin who torment their skin with potions, stain their cheeks with rouge and extend the line of their eyes with black coloring. Doubtless they are dissatisfied with God's plastic skill. In their own persons they convict and censure the Artificer of all things.

If we refuse our homage to statues and frigid images, the very counterpart of their dead originals, with which hawks, and mice, and spiders are so well acquainted, does it not merit praise instead of penalty [Christians were punished for not worshiping Roman gods] that we have rejected what we have come to see is error? We cannot surely be made out to injure those whom we are certain are nonentities. What does not exist is in its nonexistence secure from suffering.

It is absolutely forbidden to repay evil with evil.

If the sky stands still, if the earth quakes, if there is famine, if there is pestilence, at once the cry is raised: Throw the Christians to the lions! So many to one?

Truth engenders hatred of truth. As soon as it appears, it is the enemy.

Discipline is an index to doctrine.