Top 765 Quotes & Sayings by Saint Augustine - Page 3

Christ is not valued at all, unless he is valued above all.

Learn to dance, so when you get to heaven the angels know what to do with you.

Do not be afraid to throw yourself on the Lord! He will not draw back and let you fall! Put your worries aside and throw yourself on him; He will welcome you and heal you.

Try to acquire the virtues you believe lacking in your brothers. Then you will no longer see their defects, for you will no longer have them yourself.

Put no faith in salvation through the political order.

Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop.

God provides the wind, Man must raise the sail.

Two criminals were crucified with Christ. One was saved; do not despair. One was not; do not presume.

Lord, teach me to know you, and to know myself.

Your first task is to be dissatisfied with yourself, fight sin, and transform yourself into something better. Your second task is to put up with the trials and temptations of this world that will be brought on by the change in your life and to persevere to the very end in the midst of these things.

Go forth on your path, as it exists only through your walking.

When God is our strength, it is strength indeed; when our strength is our own, it is only weakness.

I learned most, not from those who taught me but from those who talked with me.

Do what you can and pray for what you cannot yet do.

Let us understand that God is a physician, and that suffering is a medicine for salvation, not a punishment for damnation.

The greatest kindness one can render to any man is leading him to truth.

Love and say it with your life.

Do not follow any road, but that which Christ trod. This road seems hard, but it is safe.

If you are suffering from a bad man's injustice, forgive him lest there be two bad men.

Therefore once for all this short command is given to you. 'Love and do what you will.' If you keep silent, keep silent by love; if you speak, speak by love; if you correct, correct by love; if you pardon, pardon by love: let love be rooted in you, and from the root nothing but good can grow.

Let us leave a little room for reflection in our lives, room too for silence. Let us look within ourselves and see whether there is some delightful hidden place inside where we can be free of noise and argument. Let us hear the Word of God in stillness and perhaps we will then come to understand it.

Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not.

What is reprehensible is that while leading good lives themselves and abhorring those of wicked men, some, fearing to offend, shut their eyes to evil deeds instead of condemning them and pointing out their malice.

Unhappy is the soul enslaved by the love of anything that is mortal.

We count on God's mercy for our past mistakes, on God's love for our present needs, on God's sovereignty for our future.

The sole purpose of life is to gain merit for life in eternity.

God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.

Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?

Sin is looking for the right thing in the wrong place.

Mary heard God's word and kept it, and so she is blessed. She kept God's truth in her mind, a nobler thing than carrying his body in her womb.

Because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false.

Our heart is restless until it rests in You.

Keep on adding, keep on walking, keep on progressing: do not delay on the road, do not go back, do not deviate.

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.

That your enemies have been created is God's doing; that they hate you and wish to ruin you is their own doing. What should you say about them in your mind? "Lord be merciful to them, forgive them their sins, put the fear of God in them, change them!" You are loving in them not what they are, but what you would have them to become.

God has no need of your money, but the poor have. You give it to the poor, and God receives it.

Nothing so clearly distinguishes a spiritual man as his treatment of an erring brother.

It is not the being seen of men that is wrong, but doing these things for the purpose of being seen of men. The problem with the hypocrite is his motivation. He does not want to be holy; he only wants to seem to be holy. He is more concerned with his reputation for righteousness than about actually becoming righteous. The approbation of men matters more to him than the approval of God.

Where your pleasure is, there is your treasure: where your treasure, there your heart; where your heart, there your happiness

Truth is not private property.

Men are always ready to nose around and find out about other's lives, but they feel lazy to know themselves and correct their own life.

To sing is to pray twice.

Two works of mercy set a person free: Forgive and you will be forgiven, and give and you will receive.

To withhold forgiveness is to take poison and expect the unforgiven to die.

No one can begin a new life, unless he repent of the old.

We should never use the truth to wound.

Before God can deliver us we must undeceive ourselves.

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending.

What do you possess if you possess not God?

Every morning you put on your clothes to cover your nakedness and protect your body from inclement weather. Why don't you also clothe your soul with the garment of faith? Remember each morning the truths of your creed, and look at yourself in the mirror of your faith. Otherwise, your soul will soon be naked with the nakedness of oblivion.

God does not expect us to submit our faith to him without reason, but the very limits of our reason make faith a necessity.

Oh, God, to know you is life. To serve You is freedom. To praise you is the soul's joy and delight. Guard me with the power of Your grace here and in all places. Now and at all times, forever. Amen.

We must understand then, that even though God doesn't always give us what we want, He always gives us what we need for our salvation.

A free curiosity is more effective in learning than a rigid discipline.

He who is filled with love is filled with God himself.

Understanding is the wages of faith.

Symbols are powerful because they are the visible signs of invisible realities.

If God is, why is there evil? But if God is not, why is there good?

The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.

For God loves saving, not condemning, and therefore He is patient with bad people, in order to make good people out of bad people.