Saint Augustine Quotes

By means of corporal and temporal things we may comprehend the eternal and the spiritual.

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

I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love...I sought what I might love, in love with loving.

Every city is a living body.

Do not say that you have chaste minds if you have unchaste eyes, because an unchaste eye is the messenger of an unchaste heart.

He who made thee is made in thee. He is made in thee through whom you were made.... Give milk, O mother, to him who is our food; give milk to the bread that comes down from heaven.

Don't go outside; get back to yourself, in the inner man lies the Truth.

I make bold to say that it is profitable for the proud to fall, in order that they may be humbled in that for which they have exalted themselves.

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.

Tolle, lege: take up and read.

We both exist and know that we exist, and rejoice in this knowledge.

You can live, provided you live; that is, you can live for ever, provided you live a good life.

And I entered and beheld with the eye of my soul... the Light Unchangeable... He that knows the Truth, knows what that Light is; and he that knows It, knows Eternity.

When regard for truth has been broken down or even slightly weakened, all things will remain doubtful.

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

Not all, nor even a majority, are saved. . . They are indeed many, if regarded by themselves, but they are few in comparison with the far larger number of those who shall be punished with the devil.

O Master, make me chaste, but not yet!

Make me a captive Lord, then I shall be truly free.

It is not the being seen of men that is wrong, but doing these things for the purpose of being seen of men. The problem with the hypocrite is his motivation.

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

Father, I am seeking: I am hesitant and uncertain, but will you, O God, watch over each step of mine and guide me.

Whole prayer is nothing but love.

Let 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.

Whoever is still seeking for miracles so that he may believe is himself a wonder, who does not believe while the world around him does.

Where was my heart to flee for refuge from my heart? Whither was I to fly, where I would not follow? In what place should I not be prey to myself?

My mother spoke of Christ to my father, by her feminine and childlike virtues, and, after having borne his violence without a murmur or complaint, gained him at the close of his life to Christ.

Jesus took His flesh from the flesh of Mary

So while he made you without you, he doesn't justify you without you.

Let necessity, and not your will, slay the enemy who fights against you.

For a sentence is not complete unless each word, once its syllables have been pronounced, gives way to make room for the next.

Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo (Give me chastity and continence, but not just yet)!

Heaven forbid that we should believe in such a way as not to accept or seek reasons, since we could not even believe if we did not possess rational souls.

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.

His knowledge is not like ours, which has three tenses; present, past, and future. God's knowledge has no change or variation.

Peace is not sought in order to provoke war, but war is waged in order to attain peace.

Why is it that we remember with difficulty and without difficulty forget? Learn with difficulty and without difficulty remain ignorant?

Blessed is he who devotes his life to great and noble ends, and who forms his well-considered plans with deliberate wisdom.

Only He who made man makes man happy.

Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.

Human law cannot punish or forbid all evil, since while doing away with evils it would do away with many good things, which would hinder the advance of the common good.

Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self; the heavenly by the love of God.

Punishment, that is the justice for the unjust.

I had a clear idea about what time is till I was asked to explain it and ceased to understand it altogether as soon as I began explaining it.

The Devil often transforms himself into an angel to tempt men, some for their instruction, some for their ruin.

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

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

A wanton eye is a messenger of an unchaste heart.

Let him who desires to be harsh in making demands upon his debtors consider that he is God’s debtor.

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

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.