St. Augustine Quotes

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.

[Milton] calls the university "A stony-hearted step-mother."

God provides the wind, Man must raise the sail.

No one can begin a new life, unless he repent of the old.

Try to acquire the virtues you believe lacking in your brothers. Then you will no longer see their defects, for you will no longer have them yourself.

People do not win people fights. Lawyers do.

Love and say it with your life.

All truth and understanding is a result of a divine light which is God Himself.

No one can have God as his father who does not have the Church as his mother.

Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one.

Don't you believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?

"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.

The measure of love is to love without measuring.

God has no need of your money, but the poor have. You give it to the poor, and God receives it.

The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.

Suppress prostitution, and capricious lusts will overthrow society.

There is nothing more serious than the sacrilege of schism because there is no just cause for severing the unity of the Church.

The cost of obedience is small compared with the cost of disobedience.

Since God is the highest good, he would not allow any evil to exist in his works unless his omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil.

Let us sing a new song, not with our lips, but with our lives.

We count on God's mercy for our past mistakes, on God's love for our present needs, on God's sovereignty for our future.

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.

You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back. Kindle and seize us. Be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love. Let us run.

I once laboured hard for the free will of man, until the grace of God at length overcame me.

Before God can deliver us we must undeceive ourselves.

He that is jealous is not in love.

Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.

Lust indulged became habit, and habit unresisted became necessity.

The Old (Testament) is in the New (Testament) revealed, the New is in the Old concealed.

Symbols are powerful because they are the visible signs of invisible realities.

Give her two red roses, each with a note. The first note says For the woman I love and the second, For my best friend.

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending.

The early bird gets the worm. The early worm... gets eaten.

Let us understand that God is a physician, and that suffering is a medicine for salvation, not a punishment for damnation.

And I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, seeing He saith this of the Holy Spirit, Whom except we have, we can neither love God, nor keep His commandments?

Yet we must say something when those who say the most are saying nothing.

If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing.

Two works of mercy set a person free: Forgive and you will be forgiven, and give and you will receive.

I learned most, not from those who taught me but from those who talked with me.

Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.

The desire is thy prayers; and if thy desire is without ceasing, thy prayer will also be without ceasing. The continuance of your longing is the continuance of your prayer.

Go forth on your path, as it exists only through your walking.

There are wolves within, and there are sheep without.

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.

Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not.

All those who belong to Jesus Christ are fastened with Him to the cross.

Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again.

Beauty is the brilliance of truth.