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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 -
Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full, that thou mayest be filled with that whereof thou art empty.
Saint Augustine
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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.
Saint Augustine -
It is not the punishment but the cause that makes the martyr.
Saint Augustine -
Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.
Saint Augustine -
We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.
Saint Augustine -
To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.
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
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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.
Saint Augustine -
Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
Saint Augustine -
Blessedness consists in the accomplishment of our desires, and in our having only regular desires.
Saint Augustine -
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.
Saint Augustine -
The wicked exist in this world either to be converted or that through them the good may exercise patience.
Saint Augustine -
Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
Saint Augustine
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Keep on adding, keep on walking, keep on progressing: do not delay on the road, do not go back, do not deviate.
Saint Augustine -
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.
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 -
God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.
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 fashioned hell for the inquisitive.
Saint Augustine
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We enjoy some gratification when our good friends die; for though their death leaves us in sorrow, we have the consolatory assurance that they are beyond the ills by which in this life even the best of people are broken down or corrupted.
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 -
The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
Saint Augustine -
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.
Saint Augustine