Saint Augustine Quotes
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If by fate anyone means the will or power of God, let him keep his meaning but mend his language; for fate commonly means a necessary process which will have its way apart from the will of God and men.
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I inquired what wickedness is, and I didn't find a substance, but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance - You, O God - towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life and swelling with external matters.
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Thus the good christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make false prophecies, however much they may in fact speak the truth; lest, being in league with the devil, they may deceive errant souls into making common cause.
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Where was my heart to flee for refuge from my heart? Whither was I to fly, where I would not follow? In what place should I not be prey to myself?
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Better that I find you, God, and leave the questions unanswered, than to find the answers without finding you.
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Too late came I to love you, O Beauty both so ancient and so new! Too late came I to love you - and behold you were with me all the time . . .
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It is easy to want things from the Lord and yet not want the Lord Himself, as though the gift could ever be preferable to the Giver.
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Order your soul; reduce your wants; live in charity; associate in Christian community; obey the laws; trust in Providence.
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We do not sin when we adore Christ in the Eucharist; we do sin when we do not adore Christ in the Eucharist.
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The same divine authority that forbids the killing of a human being establishes certain exceptions, as when God authorizes killing by a general law or when He gives an explicit commission to an individual for a limited time.
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If bodies please thee, praise God on occasion of them, and turn back thy love upon their Maker; lest in these things which please thee, thou displease. If souls please thee, be they loved in God: for they too are mutable, but in Him they are firmly established.
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AugustineThe wounds of a friend are better than the kisses of an enemy. To love with sternness is better than to deceive with gentleness.... In Luke [14:23] it is written: "Compel people to come in!" By threats of the wrath of God, the Father draws souls to his Son.
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I am convinced that in all history there has never been a greater need to Pray for our Pastors than exists right now! Pastors are experiencing an unprecedented wave of attacks, stresses, challenges. obstacles. pressures.
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I had a clear idea about what time is till I was asked to explain it and ceased to understand it altogether as soon as I began explaining it.
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Though there are very many nations all over the earth, ...there are no more than two kinds of human society, which we may justly call two cities, ...one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God ....To the City of Man belong the enemies of God, ...so inflamed with hatred against the City of God.
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The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. (City of God, Book 19)
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Let your old age be childlike, and your childhood like old age; that is, so that neither may your wisdom be with pride, nor your humility without wisdom.
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Fortitude is the disposition of soul which enables us to despise all inconveniences and the loss of things not in our power.
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Let us understand that God is a physician, and that suffering is a medicine for salvation, not a punishment for damnation.
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Let the Lord your God be your hope – seek for nothing else from him, but let him himself be your hope. There are people who hope from him riches or perishable and transitory honours, in short they hope to get from God things which are not God himself.
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I thought that continence was a matter of our own strength, and I knew that I had not the strength: for in my utter foolishness I did not know the word of Your Scripture that none can be continent unless You give it.
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"Otherwise grace is no more grace," since it is bestowed on us, not because we have done good works, but that we may be able to do them.
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If a parricide is more wicked than anyone who commits homicide-because he kills not merely a man but a near relative-without doubt worse still is he who kills himself, because there is none nearer to a man than himself.
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Ignorance itself is without a doubt a sin for those who do not wish to understand; for those who, however, cannot understand, it is the punishment of sin.