Saint Augustine Quotes
-
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.
-
It is not the punishment but the cause that makes the martyr.
-
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.
-
We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.
-
Watch, O Lord, with those who wake, or watch or weep tonight, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend your sick ones, O Lord Jesus Christ; rest your weary ones; bless your dying ones; soothe your suffering ones; pity your afflicted ones; shield your joyous ones; and all for your love's sake. Amen.
-
Hear, O God. Alas, for man's sin! So saith man, and Thou pitiest him; for Thou madest him, but sin is in him Thou madest not. Who remindeth me of the sins of my infancy? for in Thy sight none is pure from sin, not even the infant whose life is but a day upon the earth.
-
And so, lastly, does the very name of "Catholic", which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house.
-
Blessedness consists in the accomplishment of our desires, and in our having only regular desires.
-
To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.
-
Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.
-
Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
-
Keep on adding, keep on walking, keep on progressing: do not delay on the road, do not go back, do not deviate.
-
Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
-
It is not that we keep His commandments first and that then He loves but that He loves us and then we keep His commandments. This is that grace which is revealed to the humble but hidden from the proud.
-
I was unhappy and so is every soul unhappy which is tied to its love for mortal things; when it loses them, it is torn in pieces, and it is then that it comes to realize the unhappiness which was there even before it lost them.
-
He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.
-
God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Hear the other side.
-
What grace is meant to do is to help good people, not to escape their sufferings, but to bear them with a stout heart, with a fortitude that finds its strength in faith.
-
He fashioned hell for the inquisitive.
-
Now the Apostle, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says, "Knowledge inflates: but love edifies." The only correct inerpretation of this saying is that knowledge is valuable when charity informs it. Without charity, knowledge inflates; that is, it exalts man to an arrogance which is nothing but a kind of windy emptiness.
-
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.