Saint Augustine Quotes
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Our whole business in this Life is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen.
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Two criminals were crucified with Christ. One was saved; do not despair. One was not; do not presume.
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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.
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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.
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Because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false.
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Slavery is not penal in character and planned by that law which commands the preservation of the natural order and forbids disturbance.
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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.
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I fell away from you, my God, and I went astray, too far astray from you, the support of my youth, and I became to myself a land of want.
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The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance. The mind commands the hand to move, and it so easy that one hardly distinguishes the order from its execution. Yet mind is mind and hand is body. The mind orders the mind to will. The recipient of the order is itself, yet it does not perform it.
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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.
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I too have sworn heedlessly and all the time, I have had this most repulsive and death-dealing habit. I'm telling your graces; from the moment I began to serve God , and saw what evil there is in forswearing oneself, I grew very afraid indeed, and out of fear I applied the brakes to this old, old, habit.
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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.
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And he departed from our sight that we might return to our hearts and find him there. For he left us, and behold, he is here.
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O Sacrament of Love! O sign of Unity! O bond of Charity! He who would have Life finds here indeed a Life to live in and a Life to live by.
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Drunkenness is a flattering devil, a sweet poison, a pleasant sin, which whosoever hath, hath not himself, which whosoever doth commit, doth not commit sin, but he himself is wholly sin.
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What can be more excellent than prayer; what is more profitable to our life; what sweeter to our souls; what more sublime, in the course of our whole life, than the practice of prayer!
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For whenever unbaptized persons die confessing Christ, this confession is of the same efficacy for the remission of sins as if they were washed in the sacred font of baptism.
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Someone who knows enough to become the owner of a tree, and gives thanks to you for the benefits it brings him, is in a better state, even if ignorant of its height in feet and the extent of its spread, than another who measures and counts all its branches but neither owns it nor knows its creator nor loves him.
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It is salutary for us to learn to hold cheap such things, be they good or evil, as attach indifferently to good men and bad, and to covet those good things which belong only to good men, and flee those evils which belong only to evil men.
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Temperance is love surrendering itself wholly to Him who is its object; courage is love bearing all things gladly for the sake of Him who is its object; justice is love serving only Him who is its object, and therefore rightly ruling; prudence is love making wise distinction between what hinders and what helps itself.
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No man has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due to his neighbor.
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Cyprian was not issuing a new decree but was keeping to the most solid belief of the Church in order to correct some who thought that infants ought not be baptized before the eighth day after their birth. . . . He agreed with certain of his fellow bishops that a child is able to be duly baptized as soon as he is born.
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If a shameless woman expects to be defiled and then dies of her fierce love because you do not consent, will chastity also be homicide?
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Oh, God, to know you is life. To serve You is freedom. To praise you is the soul's joy and delight. Guard me with the power of Your grace here and in all places. Now and at all times, forever. Amen.