Words matter. These are the best Saint Augustine Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.
The purpose of all wars, is peace.
If we did not have rational souls, we would not be able to believe.
Oh Lord, give me chastity, but do not give it yet.
What I needed most was to love and to be loved, eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me; and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers or jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by burst of anger and quarrels.
Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.
Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.
O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.
A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.
If we live good lives, the times are also good. As we are, such are the times.
Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.
The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness, and peril of falling?
God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.
Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.
Hear the other side.
O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.
I want my friend to miss me as long as I miss him.
By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity.
Repentant tears wash out the stain of guilt.
The spiritual virtue of a sacrament is like light; although it passes among the impure, it is not polluted.
We make a ladder for ourselves of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.
Passion is the evil in adultery. If a man has no opportunity of living with another man’s wife, but if it is obvious for some reason that he would like to do so, and would do so if he could, he is no less guilty than if he was caught in the act.
God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.
Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt.
Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.
He fashioned hell for the inquisitive.
Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.
This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections.
Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.
Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you.
He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.
My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed… And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is.
He that is jealous is not in love.
The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
The soul, which is spirit, can not dwell in dust; it is carried along to dwell in the blood.
Love is the beauty of the soul.
Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.
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.
Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.
He who labours, prays.
The greatest evil is physical pain.
It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.
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.
The verdict of the world is conclusive.
Blessedness consists in the accomplishment of our desires, and in our having only regular desires.
No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.
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.
Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.
To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.
