Inspirational Quotes by Augustine

“What did it profit that I read the greatest human ideas of the so-called “liberal arts” in the books I got hold of. My thinking was enslaved to corrupt desires, so what difference did it make that I could read and understand these books? I delighted in learning, but I had no divine context for what my mind picked up. I had no foundation to discern what is true or certain. I was standing with my back to the light, so that the things that should be illuminated were in shadow, even though they were in front of my face.”

“If you find physical pleasure in earthly experiences, use the occasion to praise God for these gifts. Turn your love not on the pleasures but toward their Maker.3 Otherwise, the things that please you will cause you to displease. Love those souls that please you, but love them in God.”

“It is the part of a wise man not to seek for evil, but to endure it.”

“Why then should I be concerned for human readers to hear my confessions? It is not they who are going to ‘heal my sicknesses’ (Ps. 102: 3). The human race is inquisitive about other people’s lives, but negligent to correct their own.”

“O highest and best, most powerful, most all-powerful, most merciful and most just, most deeply hidden and most nearly present, most beautiful and most strong, constant yet incomprehensible, changeless yet changing all things, never new, never old, making all things new, bringing the proud to decay and they know it not: always acting and always at rest, still gathering yet never wanting; upholding, filling and protecting, creating, nourishing, and bringing to perfection; seeking, although in need of nothing. You love, but with no storm of passion; you are jealous, but with no anxious fear; you repent, but do not grieve; in your anger calm; you change your works, but never change your plan; you take back what you find and yet have never lost; never in need, you are yet glad of gain; never greedy, yet still demanding profit on your loans; to be paid in excess, so that you may be the debtor, and yet who has anything which is not yours? You pay back debts which you never owed and cancel debts without losing anything.”

“The weakness then of infant limbs, not its will, is its innocence.”

“In seeking him they find him, and in finding they will praise him.”

“To confess, then, is to praise and glorify God; it is an exercise in self-knowledge and true humility in the atmosphere of grace and reconciliation.”

“Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe so that you may understand.”

“Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi. In interiore homine habitat veritas.”

“There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage." — Seneca”

“Love the sinner and hate the sin.”

“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.”

“Place your hopes in the man from whom you do not inherit”

“Let such a person rejoice even to ask the question, "What does this mean?" Yes, let him rejoice in that, and choose to find by not finding rather than by finding fail to find you.”

“I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not. I sought what I might love, in love with loving, and safety I hated, and a way without snares.”

“That joy is to know You as You are. This is the happy life, to rejoice in You, of You, and for You. This is the happy life, and there is no other.”

“Run to and fro everywhere, holy fires, beautiful fires; for you are the light of the world, nor are you put under a bushel. He whom you cleave unto is exalted, and has exalted you. Run to and fro, and be known unto all nations.”

“it is a higher glory... to stay war itself with a word, than to slay men with the sword, and to procure or maintain peace by peace, not by war.”

“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.”