Top 765 Quotes & Sayings by Saint Augustine - Page 12

A young man had become possessed by a devil. The thing within him burst into loud lamentation and departed from the man. At once the youth's eye fell out on his cheek, and the whole of the pupil which had been black became white.

If you comprehend, it is not God.

And so, lastly, does the very name of "Catholic", which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house.

It is better to be cured in the Church than to be cut off from this Body as incurable ... for, as long as the member is still attached to the Body, his cure is not beyond hope, but when he has been cut off, he can neither be treated nor cured.

It was in His flesh that Christ walked among us and it is His flesh that He has given us to eat for our salvation; but no one eats of this flesh without having first adored it . . . and not only do we not sin in thus adoring it, but we would be sinning if we did not do so.

None save great men have been the authors of great heresies.

The flesh does not by its own virtue purify, but is purified by virtue of the Word by which it was assumed, when 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us' (Jn. 1:14).

The Devil invented gambling.

It is not often that we use language correctly; usually we use it incorrectly, though we understand each others meaning.

Love and do what you want. If you stop talking, you will stop talking with love; if you shout, you will shout with love; if you correct, you will correct with love.

Who would not shudder if he were given the choice of eternal death or life again as a child ? Who would not choose to die ?

Did my infancy succeed another age of mine that dies before it? Was it that which I spent within my mother's womb?... And what before that life again, O God of my joy, was I anywhere or in any body?

If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven.

I too have sworn heedlessly and all the time, I have had this most repulsive and death-dealing habit. I'm telling your graces; from the moment I began to serve God , and saw what evil there is in forswearing oneself, I grew very afraid indeed, and out of fear I applied the brakes to this old, old, habit.

Lord Jesus, don't let me lie when I say that I love you.....and protect me, for today I could betray you.

The love of our neighbor hath its bounds in each man's love of himself.

If a parricide is more wicked than anyone who commits homicide-because he kills not merely a man but a near relative-without doubt worse still is he who kills himself, because there is none nearer to a man than himself.

Give what You command and command what You will.

No one indeed believes anything unless he has first thought that it it to be believed.

Sin is Energy in the wrong channel.

Within the Church, sins are forgiven in three ways: by baptism, by prayer, and by the greater humility of penance; yet God does not forgive sins except to the baptized.

One never errs more safely than when one errs by too much loving the truth.

My love is my weight. Because of it, I move.

It is not in virtue of its liberty that the human will attains to grace, it is much rather by grace that it attains to liberty.

Therefore, give to the poor. I beg you, I admonish you, I charge you, I command you to give.

They the hazers or eversores were rightly called Overturners, since they had themselves been first overturned and perverted, tricked by those same devils who were secretly mocking them in the very acts by which they amused themselves in mocking and making fools of others.

I will not live an instant that I do not live in love. Whoever loves does all things without suffering, or, suffering, loves his suffering.

Though in the order of nature angels rank above men, yet, by scale of justice, good men are of greater value than bad angels.

For I wondered that others, subject to death, did live, since he whom I loved, as if he should never die, was dead; and I wondered yet more that myself, who was to him a second self, could live, he being dead. Well said one of his friend, "Thou half of my soul"; for I felt that my soul and his soul were "one soul in two bodies": and therefore was my life a horror to me, because I would not live halved. And therefore perchance I feared to die, lest he whom I had much loved should die wholly.

I became evil for no reason. I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself. My depraved soul leaped down from your firmament to ruin. I was seeking not to gain anything by shameful means, but shame for its own sake.

God without us will not as we without God cannot.

A brotherly person rejoices on my account when he approves me, but when he disapproves, he is loving me. To such people I will reveal myself. They will take heart from my good traits, and sigh with sadness at my bad ones. My good points are instilled by you and are your gifts. My bad points are my faults and your judgements on them. Let them take heart from the one and regret the other. Let both praise and tears ascend in your sight from brotherly hearts, your censers. ...But you Lord...Make perfect my imperfections.

I fell away from you, my God, and I went astray, too far astray from you, the support of my youth, and I became to myself a land of want.

There is no salvation outside the church.

Should you ask me what is the first thing in religion, I should reply that the first, second, and third thing therein is humility.

We are and we know we are and we love to be it and know it.

Dilige et quod vis fac. (Love and then what you will, do.)

The human race is inquisitive about other people's lives, but negligent to correct their own.

Angels are spirits, but it is not because they are spirits that they are angels. They become angels when they are sent. For the name angel refers to their office, not their nature. You ask the name of this nature, it is spirit; you ask its office, it is that of an Angel, which is a messenger.

The argument is at an end.

War should we waged without love of violence, cruelty, or enmity.

Thus the good christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make false prophecies, however much they may in fact speak the truth; lest, being in league with the devil, they may deceive errant souls into making common cause.

I have said before, and I shall say again, that I write this book for love of your love.

Though he avoided outright endorsement of the view, fifth-century Church Father Saint Augustine was clearly familiar with the theory of the spherical earth: "They [those who believe that "there are men on the other side of the earth"] fail to observe that even if the world is held to be global or rounded in shape, or if some process of reasoning should prove this to be the case, it would still not necessarily follow that the land on the opposite side is not covered by masses of water."

If faith fails, prayer perishes.

For in our hope we are saved.

Temperance is love surrendering itself wholly to Him who is its object; courage is love bearing all things gladly for the sake of Him who is its object; justice is love serving only Him who is its object, and therefore rightly ruling; prudence is love making wise distinction between what hinders and what helps itself.

By and by never comes.

When I am completely united to You, there will be no more sorrow or trials; entirely full of You, my life will be complete.

I thought that continence was a matter of our own strength, and I knew that I had not the strength: for in my utter foolishness I did not know the word of Your Scripture that none can be continent unless You give it.

I inquired what wickedness is, and I didn't find a substance, but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance - You, O God - towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life and swelling with external matters.

What is held by the whole Church, and that not as instituted by Councils, but as a matter of invariable custom, is rightly held to have been handed down by authority.

The entire most beautiful order of things that are very good, when their measures have been accomplished, is to pass away.

Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms.

Who else is it who calls us back from the death of error, except the life that does not know death, and the wisdom which, needing no light, enlightens minds which are in darkness, that wisdom by which the whole world, even to the leaves of trees drifting in the wind, is governed?

Believe that others are better than you in the debths of their soul, although outwardly you may appear better than they.

The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance. The mind commands the hand to move, and it so easy that one hardly distinguishes the order from its execution. Yet mind is mind and hand is body. The mind orders the mind to will. The recipient of the order is itself, yet it does not perform it.

Unjust laws aren't laws at all.

The Sacraments are the salvation of those who use them rightly, and the damnation of those who misuse them.

What the universal Church holds, not as instituted [invented] by councils but as something always held, is most correctly believed to have been handed down by apostolic authority. Since others respond for children, so that the celebration of the sacrament may be complete for them, it is certainly availing to them for their consecration, because they themselves are not able to respond.