Saint Augustine Quotes
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The entire most beautiful order of things that are very good, when their measures have been accomplished, is to pass away.
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Woman was merely man's helpmate, a function which pertains to her alone. She is not the image of God but as far as man is concerned, he is by himself the image of God.
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The one who is our very Life descended into our world, and bore our death, and slew it with the abundance of His own life. Thundering, He called out to us to return to Him in heaven.
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Great are those two gifts, wisdom and continence: wisdom, forsooth, whereby we are formed in the knowledge of God; continence whereby we are not conformed to this world.
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To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of eternal things; to knowledge, the rational knowledge of temporal things.
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Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.
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Everyone who observes himself doubting observes a truth, and about that which he observes he is certain; therefore he is certain about a truth. Everyone therefore who doubts whether truth exists has in himself a truth on which not to doubt.... Hence one who can doubt at all ought not to doubt the existence of truth.
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How high a price we pay for the burden of habit! I am fitted for life here where I do not want to be, I want to live there but am unfit for it, and on both counts I am miserable.
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What matters it to me if someone does not understand this? Let him too rejoice and say, “What is this?” Let him rejoice even at this, and let him love to find you while not finding it out, rather than, while finding it out, not to find you.
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Humility must accompany all our actions, must be with us everywhere; for as soon as we glory in our good works they are of no further value to our advancement in virtue.
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Though in the order of nature angels rank above men, yet, by scale of justice, good men are of greater value than bad angels.
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It is not with respect to our convenience or discomfort, but with respect to their own nature that the creatures are glorifying to their Artificer.
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Let him who desires to be harsh in making demands upon his debtors consider that he is God’s debtor.
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What is held by the whole Church, and that not as instituted by Councils, but as a matter of invariable custom, is rightly held to have been handed down by authority.
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The good Christian should beware the mathematician and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of hell.
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Why is it that man desires to be made sad, beholding doleful and tragical things, which yet himself would by no means suffer?
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The mere change of custom, even though it may be of advantage in some respects, unsettles men by reason of the novelty: therefore, if it brings no advantage, it does much harm by unprofitably disturbing the Church.
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By the fall a poison was handed to mankind through a woman [Eve], by the Redemption man was given salvation also through a woman [Mary].
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For God loves saving, not condemning, and therefore He is patient with bad people, in order to make good people out of bad people.
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Recognize in this bread what hung on the cross, and in this chalice what flowed from His side... whatever was in many and varied ways announced beforehand in the sacrifices of the Old Testament pertains to this one sacrifice which is revealed in the New Testament.
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There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity. It is this which drives us to try and discover the secrets of nature, those secrets which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing and which man should not wish to learn.
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The most venerable, clearly understood, enlightened, and reliable constant in the world is not only that we want to be happy, but that we want only to be so. Our very nature requires it of us.
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Consequently, heretics and schismatics, separated from the unity of this Body, are able to receive the same Sacrament, but with no benefit to themselves; indeed, more to their own harm, in that they are judged the more severely rather than being liberated.
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Take care of your body as if you were going to live forever; and take care of your soul as if you were going to die tomorrow.