Saint Patrick

“No one should ever say that it was my ignorance if I did or showed forth anything however small according to God's good pleasure; but let this be your conclusion and let it so be thought, that - as is the perfect truth - it was the gift of God.”

“Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me.”

“The Lord is greater than all: I have said enough.”

“He that offereth sacrifice of the goods of the poor is as one that sacrificeth the son in the presence of his father.”

“The most High approveth not the gifts of the wicked.”

“I was freeborn according to the flesh; I am born of a father who was a decurion, but I sold my noble rank - I blush not to state it, nor am I sorry - for the profit of others. In short, I am a slave in Christ to a foreign nation for the unspeakable glory of the eternal life which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

“That which I have set out in Latin is not my words but the words of God and of apostles and prophets, who of course have never lied. He who believes shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be damned. God has spoken.”

“I plainly told them, 'Be ye sincerely converted, and with your whole heart, to the Lord our God, for nothing is impossible to Him, that He may today send you food on your road, even until you are satisfied, because He has everywhere abundance.' And, with God's help, it was so done: Behold! A herd of swine appeared in the road before our eyes.”

“It was not any grace in me, but God that put this earnest care into my heart, that I should be one of the hunters or fishers whom long ago God foreshowed would come in the last days.”

“I only seek in my old age to perfect that which I had not before thoroughly learned in my youth, because my sins were a hindrance to me.”

“I am Patrick, a sinner, most uncultivated and least of all the faithful and despised in the eyes of many.”

“I have vowed to my God to teach the heathen, though I be despised by some.”

“I see that already in this present world I am exalted above measure by the Lord. And I was not worthy nor such a one as that he should grant this to me, since I know most surely that poverty and affliction become me better than delights and riches.”

“The Lord discovered to me a sense of my unbelief that, though late, I should remember my transgressions and that I should be converted with my whole heart to the Lord my God.”

“I most certainly believe that it is the gift of God that I am what I am. And so I dwell amongst barbarians, a proselyte and an exile, for the love of God.”

“I have had the good fortune through my God that I should never abandon his people whom I have acquired in the extremities of the earth.”

“Let who will scoff and revile - I will not remain silent; neither will I conceal the signs and wonders which have been shown to me by the Lord, who knew all things even before the time of this world, many years before, just as they happened.”

“Avarice is a deadly sin.”

“Before I was humiliated I was like a stone that lies in deep mud, and he who is mighty came and in his compassion raised me up and exalted me very high and placed me on the top of the wall.”

“The Lord opened the understanding of my unbelieving heart, so that I should recall my sins.”