Inspirational Quotes by Augustine

“Behold, now, how foolish it is, in so great an abundance of the truest opinions which can be extracted from these words, rashly to affirm which of them Moses particularly meant; and with pernicious contentions to offend charity itself, on account of which he hath spoken all the things whose words we endeavour to explain!”

“Los hombres están siempre dispuestos a curiosear y averiguar sobre las vidas ajenas, pero les da pereza conocerse a sí mismos y corregir su propia vida”

“If you have understood, then what you have understood is not God.”

“You were always present, angry and merciful at once, strewing the pangs of bitterness over all my lawless pleasures to lead me to look for others unallied with pain. You meant me to find them nowhere but in yourself, O Lord, for... you smite so that you may heal.”

“Todos deben ser amados igualmente, pero cuando no se puede socorrer a todos, ante todo se ha de mirar por el bien de aquellos que, conforme a las circunstancias de lugares y tiempos de cada cosa, se hallan más unidos a ti como por una especie de suerte.”

“if we are wayfarers who want to return home, then we must see the world as a means of transportation (terestibus vel marinis vehiculis) and always remember to distinguish the means and ends.”

“God has one Son without sin, but none without affliction.”

“Dai-me o que me ordenais, e ordenai-me o que quiserdes.”

“FR : Celui qui perd sa passion perd plus que celui qui se perd dans sa passion EN : Whoever loses his passion loses more than he who is lost in his passion”

“Let him love to find You while not finding it out, rather than, while finding it out, not to find You.”

“And I come to the fields and spacious palaces of my memory, where are the treasures of innumerable images, brought into it from things of all sorts perceived by the senses … Great is the power of memory, a fearful thing, O my God, a deep and boundless manifoldness; and this thing is the mind, and this am I myself … I will pass even beyond this power of mine which is called memory: yea, I will pass beyond it, that I may approach unto Thee, O sweet Light … Where then did I find Thee, that I might learn Thee? For in my memory Thou wert not, before I learned Thee. Where then did I find Thee, that I might learn Thee, but in Thee above me? Place there is none; we go backward and forward, and there is no place. Everywhere, O Truth, dost Thou give … all who ask counsel of Thee, from “Book X”

“For there is no single cause of evil; rather, everyone who does evil is the cause of his own evildoing. If you doubt this, recall what I said earlier: Evil deeds are punished by the justice of God. They would not be punished justly if they had not been performed voluntarily.”

“Even so, I could not have been wholly content to confine sexual union to acts intended to procreate children, as your law prescribes, Lord... 'It is good for a man not touch a woman' (I Cor. 7:1), and 'He who has no wife thinks on the things of God, how he can please God. But he who is joined in marriage thinks on the affairs of the world, how he can please his wife' (I Cor. 7:32-2)”

“Como era miserável e como procesdestes para que sentisse a minha desgraça, naquele dia em que me preparava para declamar louvores ao imperador! Neles mentiria muito, e os que o sabiam apoiavam o mentiroso! Meu coração agitava-se com estes cuidados e ardia na febre dos pensamentos corrompidos, quando, ao passar por um bairro em Milão, reparei num pobre mendigo, já ébrio, julgo eu, mas humorístico e alegre. Gemi e falei aos meus amigos que me acompanhavam das muitas angústias provenientes das nossas loucuras. Com todos os esforços [...] só queríamos chegar à alegria segura, aonde já tinha chegado, primeiro de nós, aquele mendigo e aonde nunca talvez, chegaríamos. Dirigia-me para aquilo mesmo que ele já alcançara com poucas moedas pedidas de esmola, isto é, para a alegria e felicidade temporal, dando voltas e rodeios trabalhosos. Não possuía o ébrio, é certo a alegria verdadeira. Mas, com tais ambições, eu a buscava muito mais falsamente. Ele, com certeza, andava alegre e eu preocupado; ele vivia seguro e eu cheio de inquietações.”

“The promise of satisfaction in worldly loves is an enduring lie that moves the soul to unfaithfulness from its proper lover.”

“The Incarnate Word has been spoken. It calls the soul back to its place of peace that cannot be disturbed and love that will never be disappointed.”

“O Lord our God, under the covering of your wings (Exod. 19: 4) we set our hope. Protect us and bear us up. It is you who will carry us; you will bear us up from our infancy until old age (Isa. 46: 4). When you are our firm support, then it is firm indeed. But when our support rests on our own strength, it is infirmity. Our good is life with you for ever, and because we turned away from that, we became twisted. Let us now return to you that we may not be overturned. Our good is life with you and suffers no deficiency (Ps. 101: 28); for you yourself are that good. We have no fear that there is no home to which we may return because we fell from it. During our absence our house suffers no ruin; it is your eternity.”

“This only I know, that woe is me except in Thee: not only without but within myself also; and all abundance, which is not my God, is emptiness to me.”

“the poverty of human intelligence has plenty to say, for inquiry employs more words than the discovery of the solution;”

“O man, that which My Scripture saith, I say: and yet doth that speak in time; but time has no relation to My Word; because My Word exists in equal eternity with Myself. So the things which ye see through My Spirit, I see; like as what ye speak by My Spirit, I speak. And so when ye see those things in time, I see them not in time; as when ye speak in time, I speak them not in time.”