Saint Augustine Quotes
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Furthermore, what profit was it to me that I, rascally slave of selfish ambitions that I was, read and understood by myself as many books as I could get concerning the so-called liberal arts?...I had turned my back to the light and my face to the things it illuminated, and so no light played upon my own face, or on the eyes that perceived them.
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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.
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What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction
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Longing desire prayeth always, though the tongue be silent. If thou art ever longing, thou art ever praying.
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Chastity, or cleanness of heart, holds a glorious and distinguished place among the virtues, because she, alone, enables man to see God; hence Truth itself said, 'Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.'
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Angels are spirits, but it is not because they are spirits that they are angels. They become angels when they are sent. For the name angel refers to their office, not their nature. You ask the name of this nature, it is spirit; you ask its office, it is that of an Angel, which is a messenger.
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Whoever seems to himself to have understood the Scriptures in such a way that he does not build up that double love of God and neighbor has not yet understood.
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Alternate translation: Come brethren, if you have a mind to be ingrafted in the vine, It is a pity to see you lopped off in this manner From the stock. Reckon up the prelates in the very see of Peter; And in that order of fathers see which has succeeded which. This is the rock over which the proud gates of hell prevail not.
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Who can control this when its appetite is aroused? No one! In the very movement of this appetite, then, it has no "mode" that responds to the decisions of the will ... Yet what he wishes he cannot accomplish ... In the very movement of the appetite, it has no mode corresponding to the decision of the will.
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Let no one flatter himself; of himself he is Satan. Let man take sin, which is his own, and leave righteousness with God.
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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.
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This entire most beautiful order of good things is going to pass away after its measure has been exhausted; for both morning and evening were made in them.
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Beware of despairing about yourself: you are commanded to put your trust in God, and not in yourself.
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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.
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Believe that others are better than you in the debths of their soul, although outwardly you may appear better than they.
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Therefore once for all this short command is given to you. 'Love and do what you will.' If you keep silent, keep silent by love; if you speak, speak by love; if you correct, correct by love; if you pardon, pardon by love: let love be rooted in you, and from the root nothing but good can grow.
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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.
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Who else is it who calls us back from the death of error, except the life that does not know death, and the wisdom which, needing no light, enlightens minds which are in darkness, that wisdom by which the whole world, even to the leaves of trees drifting in the wind, is governed?
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This awful catastrophe is not the end but the beginning. History does not end so. It is the way its chapters open.
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Christ held Himself in His hands when He gave His Body to His disciples saying: 'This is My Body.' No one partakes of this Flesh before he has adored it.
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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.
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We must be on our guard against giving interpretations which are hazardous or opposed to science, and so exposing the word of God to the ridicule of unbelievers.
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Give me yourself, O my God, give yourself back to me. Lo, I love you, but if my love is too mean, let me love more passionately. I cannot gauge my love, nor know how far it fails, how much more love I need for my life to set its course straight into your arms, never swerving until hidden in the covert of your face.
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Though defensive violence will always be 'a sad necessity' in the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men.