Saint Augustine Quotes

"The greatest evil is physical pain."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Evil, Pain)

"The desire is thy prayers; and if thy desire is without ceasing, thy prayer will also be without ceasing. The continuance of your longing is the continuance of your prayer."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Desire, Longing, Prayer, Will)

"The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Beginning, Confession, Evil, First)

"Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Beauty, Love, Soul)

"Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: May)

"Punishment is justice for the unjust."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Justice, Punishment)

"A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently."
- Saint Augustine

"Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: God)

"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Travel, World)

"Don't you believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?"
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Deep, Man)

"Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Clouds, First, Humility, Will)

"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."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Being, Desire, First, Humility)

"Charity is no substitute for justice withheld."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Charity, Justice)

"Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Grace, Will)

"Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Forgiveness, Being)

"To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Abstinence, Moderation)

"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."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Soul, Heart, Feeling, Man, Play)

"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Time)

"What I needed most was to love and to be loved, eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me; and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers or jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by burst of anger and quarrels."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Anger, Love, Fear, Jealousy, Quarrels)

"What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Love, Men, Eyes, Feet, Help, Misery, Poor, Want)

"We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Vices)

"We cannot pass our guardian angel's bounds, resigned or sullen, he will hear our sighs."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Will)

"The purpose of all wars, is peace."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Peace, Purpose)

"To seek the highest good is to live well."
- Saint Augustine

"The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Words)

"To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Sin)

"Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full, that thou mayest be filled with that whereof thou art empty."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Art)

"Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Heart, Quiet)

"This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Man, Perfection)

"There is something in humility which strangely exalts the heart."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Heart, Humility)

"There is no possible source of evil except good."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Evil)

"Give me chastity and continence, but not yet."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Chastity)

"We are certainly in a common class with the beasts; every action of animal life is concerned with seeking bodily pleasure and avoiding pain."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Life, Action, Class, Pain, Pleasure)

"O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Heart, Spirit)

"It is not the punishment but the cause that makes the martyr."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Cause, Martyr, Punishment)

"It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Men, Angels, Humility, Pride)

"Love is the beauty of the soul."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Beauty, Love, Soul)

"Love, and do what you like."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Love)

"Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Men, Mountains, Ocean, Rivers, Sea, Stars, Wonder)

"Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Nature, Miracles)

"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."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Beauty, God, May)

"No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Duty, Nothing)

"If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself."
- Saint Augustine

"O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Help)

"Oh Lord, give me chastity, but do not give it yet."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Chastity)

"Our bodies are shaped to bear children, and our lives are a working out of the processes of creation. All our ambitions and intelligence are beside that great elemental point."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Intelligence, Children, Creation)

"Passion is the evil in adultery. If a man has no opportunity of living with another man's wife, but if it is obvious for some reason that he would like to do so, and would do so if he could, he is no less guilty than if he was caught in the act."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Wife, Opportunity, Act, Adultery, Evil, Living, Man, Obvious, Passion, Reason)

"Patience is the companion of wisdom."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Wisdom, Patience)

"Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Work, God)

"My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed... And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Experience, Thoughts, Vision, Light, Mind)

"Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Soul, Virtue, Appearance, Humility)

"God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: God, Son, Earth, Sin, Suffering)

"God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: God, Evil)

"God loves each of us as if there were only one of us."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: God)

"Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt."
- Saint Augustine

"He that is jealous is not in love."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Love)

"He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Evil)

"Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Happiness, Man, Wishes)

"Hear the other side."
- Saint Augustine

"In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?"
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Absence, Justice)

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

"I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Labor, sayings)

"I want my friend to miss me as long as I miss him."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Friend, Want)

"If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don't accept, because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Friend, Friends, Gain, Strangers, Will)

"If we did not have rational souls, we would not be able to believe."
- Saint Augustine

"If we live good lives, the times are also good. As we are, such are the times."
- Saint Augustine

"Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Abstinence, Moderation)

"He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Help, Will)

"By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Faithfulness, Multiplicity, Unity)