Augustine of Hippo

“There are many going afar to marvel at the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the long courses of great rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the movements of the stars, yet they leave themselves unnoticed!”

“What should you, O man, do, you who seek your own glory whenever you do anything good, while when you do something bad, you figure out ways to blame God.”

“The Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them.”

“Pray as though everything depends on God. And work as if everything depends on you.”

“The end of life puts the longest life on a par with the shortest.”

“There can only be two basic loves... the love of God unto the forgetfulness of self, or the love of self unto the forgetfulness and denial of God.”

“Do not feel surprise at being schooled amid toil: you are being schooled for a wondrous destiny.”

“Augustine taught that true freedom is not choice or lack of constraint, but being what you are meant to be. Humans were created in the image of God. True freedom, then, is not found in moving away from that image but only in living it out.”

“Music, that is the science or the sense of proper modulation, is likewise given by God's generosity to mortals having rational souls in order to lead them to higher things.”

“The deformity of Christ forms you. If he had not willed to be deformed, you would not have recovered the form which you had lost. Therefore he was deformed when he hung on the cross. But his deformity is our comeliness. In this life, therefore, let us hold fast to the deformed Christ.”

“Time takes no holiday. It does not roll idly by, but through our senses works its own wonders in the mind. Time came and went from one day to the next; in its coming and its passing it brought me other hopes and other memories. [quoted in Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, p. 54]”

“Thus, every entity, even if it is a defective one, in so far as it is an entity, is good. In so far as it is defective, it is evil.”

“If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”

“He loves Thee too little, who loves anything together with Thee, which he loves not for Thy sake.”

“For it is one thing to see the Land of Peace from a wooded ridge, and yet another to walk the road that leads to it.”

“Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.”

“I am no more than a child, but my Father lives for ever and I have a Protector great enough to save me.”

“How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose..! You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place.... O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation.”

“Christ is not valued at all, unless he is valued above all.”

“Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.”