Inspirational Quotes by Augustine

“What is time? Who can explain this easily and briefly? Who can comprehend this even in thought so as to articulate the answer in words? Yet what do we speak of, in our familiar everyday conversation, more than of time? We surely know what we mean when we speak of it. We also know what is meant when we hear someone else talking about it. What then is time? Provided that no one asks me, I know. If I want to explain it to an inquirer, I do not know. But I confidently affirm myself to know that if nothing passes away, there is no past time, and if nothing arrives, there is no future time, and if nothing existed there would be no present time. Take the two tenses, past and future. How can they 'be' when the past is not now present and the future is not yet present? Yet if the present were always present, it would not pass into the past: it would not be time but eternity. If then, in order to be time at all, the present is so made that it passes into the past, how can we say that this present also 'is'? The cause of its being is that it will cease to be. So indeed we cannot truly say that time exists except in the sense that it tends toward non-existence.”

“Thou art every where, Whom no place encompasseth! and Thou alone art near, even to those that remove far from Thee. Let them then be turned, and seek Thee; because not as they have forsaken their Creator, hast Thou forsaken Thy creation.”

“In You we do not fear that there will be no home to return to if we wander off. While we are away, You preserve our mansion with a patience that stretches into eternity.”

“O crooked paths! Woe to the audacious soul, which hoped, by forsaking Thee, to gain some better thing!”

“But whosoever recount his true merits to Thee, what is it that he recounts to Thee but Thine own gifts? Oh, if men would know themselves to be men...”

“Yet when it happens to me that the music moves me more than the subject of the song, I confess myself to commit a sin deserving punishment, and then I would prefer not to have heard the singer.”

“Who can unravel this most snarled, knotty tangle? It is disgusting, and I do not want to look at it or see it. O justice and innocence, fair and lovely, it is on you that I want to gaze with eyes that see purely and find satiety in never being sated. With you is rest and tranquil life. Whoever enters into you enters the joy of his Lord; there he will fear nothing and find his own supreme good in God who is supreme goodness.”

“Weaned from all passing fancies, let my soul praise You, O God, Creator of all. You did not allow my soul to remain attached to corruptible things with the glue of love, attached to what my senses find pleasing. For things we are attached to go where they will, then they cease, leaving the lover torn with corrupted longings.”

“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. ”

“For the will cannot be forced into such iniquity by anything superior or equal to it, since that would be unjust; or by anything inferior to it, since that is impossible.”

“Only one possibility remains: the movement by which the will turns from enjoying the Creator to enjoying his creatures belongs to the will itself.”

“We are inflamed, by Thy Gift we are kindled; and are carried upwards; we glow inwardly, and go forwards. We ascend Thy ways that be in our heart, and sing a song of degrees; we glow inwardly with Thy fire, with Thy good fire, and we go; because we go upwards to the peace of Jerusalem: for gladdened was I in those who said unto me, We will go up to the house of the Lord. There hath Thy good pleasure placed us, that we may desire nothing else, but to abide there for ever.”

“La sabiduría y la necedad se parecen a los alimentos, que son buenos unos y malos otros, pero se pueden unos y otros servir lo mismo en vasija de lujo que en vasos rústicos y corrientes. La sabiduría y la necedad pueden ofrecerse lo mismo con palabras cultas y escogidas que con expresiones corrientes y vulgares.”

“Thou owest men nothing, yet payest out to them as if in debt to thy creature, and when thou dost cancel debts thou losest nothing thereby.”

“But my sin was this, that I looked for pleasure, beauty, and truth not in Him but in myself and His other creatures, and the search led me instead to pain, confusion, and error.”

“¡Desdichada el alma temeraria que se imaginó que alejándose de ti puede conseguir algo mejor! Se vuelve y se revuelve de un lado para otro, hacia la espalda y boca abajo y todo le es duro, pues la única paz eres tú. Y tú estás ahí, para librarnos de nuestros desvaríos y hacernos volver a tu camino; nos consuelas y nos dices: ¡Vamos! ¡Yo los aliviaré de peso, los conduciré hasta el fin y allí los liberaré!”

“Escucha, Señor, mi súplica para que mi alma no se quiebre bajo tu disciplina, ni desmaye en confesar las misericordias con las que me sacaste de mis pésimos caminos. Seas tú siempre para mí una dulzura más fuerte que todas las mundanas seducciones que antes me arrastraban. Haz que te ame con hondura y apriete tu mano con todas las fuerzas de mi corazón, y así me vea libre hasta el fin de todas las tentaciones. 2.”

“so I had already learned under your tuition that nothing should be regarded as true because it is eloquently stated, nor false because the words sound clumsy.”

“It was a day when I was preparing a speech to be delivered in praise of the Emporor; there would be a lot of lies in the speech and they would be applauded by those who knew that they were lies." The Confessions of St. Augustine”

“Sprawiedliwości i niewinności pragnę, pięknych i jasnych dla oczu czystych, ich pragnę, które im bardziej sycą, tym bardziej się ich pożąda. W nich jest spokój pewny, w nich jest życie, którego nic nie zakłóci.”