Saint Augustine Quotes

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

- Saint Augustine

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.

- Saint Augustine

God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.

- Saint Augustine

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

Punishment is justice for the unjust.

- Saint Augustine

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

- Saint Augustine

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh Lord, give me chastity, but do not give it yet.

- Saint Augustine

The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.

- Saint Augustine

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

- Saint Augustine

Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.

- Saint Augustine

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?

- Saint Augustine

It seems to me that an unjust law is no law at all.

- Saint Augustine

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

Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.

- Saint Augustine

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.

- Saint Augustine

The verdict of the world is conclusive.

- Saint Augustine

A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.

- Saint Augustine

To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.

- Saint Augustine

Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt.

- Saint Augustine

Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full, that thou mayest be filled with that whereof thou art empty.

- Saint Augustine

O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.

- Saint Augustine

This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections.

- Saint Augustine

It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.

- Saint Augustine

We cannot pass our guardian angel's bounds, resigned or sullen, he will hear our sighs.

- Saint Augustine

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.

- Saint Augustine

Bad company is like a nail driven into a post, which, after the first and second blow, may be drawn out with little difficulty; but being once driven up to the head, the pincers cannot take hold to draw it out, but which can only be done by the destruction of the wood.

- Saint Augustine

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.

- Saint Augustine

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

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

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

- Saint Augustine

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.

- 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

Blessedness consists in the accomplishment of our desires, and in our having only regular desires.

- Saint Augustine

There is something in humility which strangely exalts the heart.

- Saint Augustine

We make a ladder for ourselves of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.

- Saint Augustine

We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.

- Saint Augustine

In doing what we ought we deserve no praise, because it is our duty.

- Saint Augustine

God is best known in not knowing him.

- Saint Augustine

Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.

- Saint Augustine

Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

- Saint Augustine

To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

- Saint Augustine

If we did not have rational souls, we would not be able to believe.

- Saint Augustine

Love is the beauty of the soul.

- Saint Augustine

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

Custom is second nature.

- Saint Augustine

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

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

Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you.

- Saint Augustine

The spiritual virtue of a sacrament is like light; although it passes among the impure, it is not polluted.

- Saint Augustine

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.

- Saint Augustine

The greatest evil is physical pain.

- Saint Augustine

God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.

- Saint Augustine

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

There is no possible source of evil except good.

- Saint Augustine

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

Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.

- Saint Augustine

No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.

- Saint Augustine

I want my friend to miss me as long as I miss him.

- Saint Augustine

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

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

- Saint Augustine

Repentant tears wash out the stain of guilt.

- Saint Augustine

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

He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.

- Saint Augustine

The soul, which is spirit, can not dwell in dust; it is carried along to dwell in the blood.

- Saint Augustine

If I am given a formula, and I am ignorant of its meaning, it cannot teach me anything, but if I already know it what does the formula teach me?

- Saint Augustine

God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.

- Saint Augustine

To seek the highest good is to live well.

- Saint Augustine

Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

- Saint Augustine

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

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.

- Saint Augustine

He who labours, prays.

- Saint Augustine

The same thing which is now called Christian religion existed among the ancients. They have begun to call 'Christian' the true religion which existed before.

- Saint Augustine

Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.

- Saint Augustine

This world's a bubble.

- Saint Augustine

O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.

- Saint Augustine

The purpose of all wars, is peace.

- Saint Augustine

He fashioned hell for the inquisitive.

- Saint Augustine

He that is jealous is not in love.

- Saint Augustine

Patience is the companion of wisdom.

- 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

If we live good lives, the times are also good. As we are, such are the times.

- Saint Augustine