Saint Augustine Quotes

Trust the past to the mercy of God, the present to His love, and the future to His providence.

O Lord, grant that I may do Thy will as if it were my will, so that Thou mayest do my will as if it were Thy will.

The playthings of our elders are called business.

He who does not have the church as his mother, does not have God as his father.

When I am completely united to You, there will be no more sorrow or trials; entirely full of You, my life will be complete.

Let us therefore yield ourselves and bow to the authority of the Holy Scriptures, which can neither err nor deceive.

In 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.

It is not earthly riches which make us or our sons happy; for they must either be lost by us in our lifetime, or be possessed when we are dead, by whom we know not, or perhaps by whom we would not.

Whoever, therefore, thinks that he understands the divine scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build on the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all. Thus a man supported by faith, hope, and charity, with an unshaken hold upon them does not need the scriptures ... And many live by these three things in solitude without books.

If you lose your soul, there is a danger of its being destroyed. Therefore, you may not love it, since you do not want it to be destroyed. But in not wanting it to be destroyed, you love it.

AugustineThe wounds of a friend are better than the kisses of an enemy. To love with sternness is better than to deceive with gentleness ... In Luke [14:23] it is written: "Compel people to come in!" By threats of the wrath of God, the Father draws souls to his Son.

Ninety 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.

He who has God has everything; he who has everything but God has nothing.

There are three ways in which sins are forgiven: in baptism, in prayer, and in the greater humility of penance; yet God does not forgive sins except to the baptized

We come to God by love and not by navigation.

Doubt is but another element of faith.

Make friends with angels.

Two works of mercy set a person free: Forgive and you will be forgiven, and give and you will receive.

If 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.

If you are suffering from a bad man's injustice, forgive him lest there be two bad men.

The wicked have told me of things that delight them, but not such things as your law has to tell.

The true religion has always been one from the beginning, and will always be the same.

It is better that the truth be known than that scandal be covered up.

To sing is to pray twice.

When we read a book, our most essential trait - imagination - is given the opportunity to soar.

All diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to demons; chiefly do they torment freshly-baptized Christians, yea, even the guiltless new-born infants.

Put no faith in salvation through the political order.

Late have I loved Thee, O Lord; and behold, Thou wast within and I without, and there I sought Thee. Thou was with me when I was not with Thee. Thou didst call, and cry, and burst my deafness. Thou didst gleam, and glow, and dispell my blindness. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for Thy peace. For Thyself Thou hast made us, and restless our hearts until in Thee they find their ease. Late have I loved Thee, Thou Beauty ever old and ever new. Thou hast burst my bonds asunder; unto Thee will I offer up an offering of praise.

That there should be some fire even after this life is not incredible, and it can be inquired into and either be discovered or left hidden whether some of the faithful may be saved, some more slowly and some more quickly in the greater or lesser degree in which they loved the good things that perish, through a certain purgatorial fire.

Whoever possesses God is happy.

You have found that you were more secure before you accumulated so much. See what greed has imposed on you: You have filled your house and now you fear burglars. You have hoarded money and lost sleep. See what greed has commanded you: "Do this!" And you did it.

Although God is all powerful, He is unable to give more; though supremely wise, He knows not how to give more; though vastly rich, He has not more to give.

The Gods occupy the loftiest regions, men the lowest, the demons the middle region ... They have immortality of body, but passions of the mind in common with men.

God 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.

As to those other things which we hold on the authority, not of Scripture, but of tradition, and which are observed throughout the whole world, it may be understood that they are held as approved and instituted either by the apostles themselves, or by plenary Councils, whose authority in the Church is most useful, e.g. the annual commemoration, by special solemnities, of the Lord's passion, resurrection, and ascension, and of the descent of the Holy Spirit from heaven, and whatever else is in like manner observed by the whole Church wherever it has been established.

Six is a number perfect in itself, and not because God created the world in six days; rather the contrary is true. God created the world in six days because this number is perfect, and it would remain perfect, even if the work of the six days did not exist.

The argument is at an end.

If we are perplexed by an apparent contradiction in Scripture, it is not allowable to say, 'The author of this book is mistaken'; but either the manuscript is faulty, or the translation is wrong, or you have not understood.

The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness, and peril of falling?

I became evil for no reason. I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself. My depraved soul leaped down from your firmament to ruin. I was seeking not to gain anything by shameful means, but shame for its own sake.

It is He who gave to this intellectual nature free-will of such a kind, that if he wishes to forsake God his blessedness, misery should forthwith result.

Longing desire prayeth always, though the tongue be silent. If thou art ever longing, thou art ever praying.

All truth and understanding is a result of a divine light which is God Himself.

For, were it not good that evil things should also exist, the omnipotent God would almost certainly not allow evil to be, since beyond doubt it is just as easy for Him not to allow what He does not will, as for Him to do what He will.

If there is something more excellent than the truth, then that is God; if not, then truth itself is God.

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.

Love can be angry ... with a kind of anger in which there is no gall, like the dove's and not the ravens.

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.

He who thinks he lives without sin puts aside not sin, but pardon.

A free curiosity is more effective in learning than a rigid discipline.

You have enemies. For who can live on this earth without them? Take heed to yourselves: love them. In no way can your enemy so hurt you by his violence, as you hurt yourself if you love him not.

If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven ...

Love and do what you want. If you stop talking, you will stop talking with love; if you shout, you will shout with love; if you correct, you will correct with love.

Modo, et modo, non habebent modum.
By-and-by has no end.

We were ensnared by the wisdom of the serpent; we are set free by the foolishness of God .

To withhold forgiveness is to take poison and expect the unforgiven to die.

The Devil invented gambling.

The greatest kindness one can render to any man is leading him to truth.

Trials and tribulations offer us a chance to make reparation for our past faults and sins. On such occasions the Lord comes to us like a physician to heal the wounds left by our sins. Tribulation is the divine medicine.

By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity.

So give to the poor; I'm begging you, I'm warning you, I'm commanding you, I'm ordering you.

If God is, why is there evil? But if God is not, why is there good?

Choose to love whomsoever thou wilt: all else will follow.

The most venerable, clearly understood, enlightened, and reliable constant in the world is not only that we want to be happy, but that we want only to be so. Our very nature requires it of us.

Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt.

Hope has two lovely daughters, anger and courage.

I would not believe in the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.

Great are those two gifts, wisdom and continence: wisdom, forsooth, whereby we are formed in the knowledge of God; continence whereby we are not conformed to this world.

There is a God-shaped vacuum in every man that only Christ can fill.

The Lord says, 'Whoever has, to him shall be given' (Mt. 13:12). He will give, then, to those who have; that is to say, if they use freely and cheerfully what they have received, He will add to and perfect His gifts.

The dove loves when it quarrels; the wolf hates when it flatters.

And so, lastly, does the very name of "Catholic", which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house.

When [men] go to war, what they want is to impose on their enemies the victor's will and call it peace.

Nothing whatever pertaining to godliness and real holiness can be accomplished without grace .

Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me.

God's love is unconditional. Be sure that yours is too!

When I seek you, my God, I seek a blessed life. I shall seek you, so that my soul may live.

If we tread our vices under our feet, we make of them a ladder by which to rise to higher things.

Nothing is so much to be shunned as sex relations.

Not to give to those in need what is to you superfluous is akin to fraud.

Now, justification in this life is given to us according to these three things: first by the laver of regeneration by which all sins are forgiven; then, by a struggle with the faults from whose guilt we have been absolved; the third, when our prayer is heard, in which we say: 'Forgive us our debts,' because however bravely we fight against our faults, we are men; but the grace of God so aids as we fight in this corruptible body that there is reason for His hearing us as we ask forgiveness.

As to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth where the sun rises when it sets to us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground credible. Even if some unknown landmass is there, and not just ocean, there was only one pair of original ancestors, and it is inconceivable that such distant regions should have been peopled by Adam's descendants.

Order your soul; reduce your wants; live in charity; associate in Christian community; obey the laws; trust in Providence.

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. 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.

We count on God's mercy for our past mistakes, on God's love for our present needs, on God's sovereignty for our future.

Salvation is God's way of making us real people.

Don'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.

Woman 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.

I was in love with loving.

In what is necessary, unity; in what is not necessary, liberty and in all things charity.

They who shall enter into [the] joy [of the Lord] shall know what is going on outside in the outer darkness ... The saints' ... knowledge, which shall be great, shall keep them acquainted ... with the eternal sufferings of the lost.

Thus the good christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make false prophecies, however much they may in fact speak the truth; lest, being in league with the devil, they may deceive errant souls into making common cause.

As the soul is the life of the body, so God is the life of the soul. As therefore the body perishes when the soul leaves it, so the soul dies when God departs from it.

You cannot attain to charity except through humility.

To touch God a little with our mind is a great blessing, to grasp him is impossible.

Why then be perverted and follow thy flesh? Be it converted and follow thee.

The arrogance is not greatness but swelling; and the swelling seems big but it's not healthy.

It is not the punishment but the cause that makes the martyr.

Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? ... A gang is a group of men ... in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention. If this villainy ... acquires territory, establishes a base, captures cities and subdues people, it then openly arrogates to itself the title of kingdom.

The rich are like beasts of burden, carrying treasure all day, and at the night of death unladen; they carry to their grave only the bruises and marks of their toil.