Augustine of Hippo Quotes

252 Sourced Quotes

Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.

Augustine of Hippo
You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.

Augustine of Hippo
In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?

Augustine of Hippo
True martyrdom is not determined by the penalty suffered, but by the cause.

Augustine of Hippo
God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.

Augustine of Hippo
Love all men, even your enemies; love them, not because they are your brothers, but that they may become your brothers. Thus you will ever burn with fraternal love, both for him who is already your brother and for your enemy, that he may by loving become your brother. … Even he that does not as yet believe in Christ … love him, and love him with fraternal love. He is not yet thy brother, but love him precisely that he may be thy brother.

Augustine of Hippo
Choose to love whomsoever thou wilt: all else will follow. Thou mayest say, "I love only God, God the Father." Wrong! If Thou lovest Him, thou dost not love Him alone; but if thou lovest the Father, thou lovest also the Son. Or thou mayest say, "I love the Father and I love the Son, but these alone; God the Father and God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ who ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father, the Word by whom all things were made, the Word who was made flesh and dwelt amongst us; only these do I love." Wrong again! If thou lovest the Head, thou lovest also the members; if thou lovest not the members, neither dost thou love the Head.

Augustine of Hippo
Christ Himself has said: They are no longer two, but they are one flesh (Matt. 19:6). Is it strange then, if they are one flesh, that they should have one tongue and should say the same words, since they are one flesh, Head and body? Let us therefore hear them as one. But let us listen to the Head speaking as Head, and to the body speaking as the body. We do not separate the two realities, but two different dignities; for the Head saves, and the body is saved.

Augustine of Hippo
I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful; but I never read in either of them, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden."

Augustine of Hippo
Too late I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient and ever new! Too late I loved you! And, behold, you were within me, and I out of myself, and there I searched for you.

Augustine of Hippo
The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God.

Augustine of Hippo
How high a price we pay for the burden of habit! I am fitted for life here where I do not want to be, I want to live there but am unfit for it, and on both counts I am miserable.

Augustine of Hippo
Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.

Augustine of Hippo
If any one will piously and soberly consider the sermon which our Lord Jesus spoke on the mount, as we read it in the Gospel according to Matthew, I think that he will find in it, so far as regards the highest morals, a perfect standard of the Christian life: and this we do not rashly venture to promise, but gather it from the very words of the Lord Himself. For the sermon itself is brought to a close in such a way, that it is clear there are in it all the precepts which go to mould the life. … He has sufficiently indicated, as I think, that these sayings which He uttered on the mount so perfectly guide the life of those who may be willing to live according to them, that they may justly be compared to one building upon a rock.

Augustine of Hippo
The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.

Augustine of Hippo
The Catholic faith, … I now realized could be maintained without presumption. This was especially true after I had heard one or two parts of the Old Testament explained allegorically—whereas before this, when I had interpreted them literally, they had killed me spiritually.

Augustine of Hippo
Give, O Lord, what Thou commandest, and then command what Thou wilt.

Augustine of Hippo
If bodies please thee, praise God on occasion of them, and turn back thy love upon their Maker; lest in these things which please thee, thou displease. If souls please thee, be they loved in God: for they too are mutable, but in Him they are firmly established.

Augustine of Hippo
We made bad use of immortality, and so ended up dying; Christ made good use of mortality, so that we might end up living.

Augustine of Hippo
What tigress is there that does not purr over her young ones, and fawn upon them in tenderness?

Augustine of Hippo
Christ's whole body groans in pain. Until the end of the world, when pain will pass away, this man groans and cries to God. And each one of us has part in the cry of that whole body. Thou didst cry out in thy day, and thy days have passed away; another took thy place and cried out in his day. Thou here, he there, and another there. The body of Christ ceases not to cry out all the day, one member replacing the other whose voice is hushed. Thus there is but one man who reaches unto the end of time, and those that cry are always His members.

Augustine of Hippo
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.

Augustine of Hippo
Why is it that man desires to be made sad, beholding doleful and tragical things, which yet himself would by no means suffer?

Augustine of Hippo
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.

Augustine of Hippo
So if you can manage it, you shouldn't touch your partner, except for the sake of having children.

Augustine of Hippo
Now, justification in this life is given to us according to these three things: first by the laver of regeneration by which all sins are forgiven; then, by a struggle with the faults from whose guilt we have been absolved; the third, when our prayer is heard, in which we say: 'Forgive us our debts,' because however bravely we fight against our faults, we are men; but the grace of God so aids as we fight in this corruptible body that there is reason for His hearing us as we ask forgiveness.

Augustine of Hippo
To Carthage I came, where all about me resounded a caldron of dissolute loves.

Augustine of Hippo
O sons of Peace, sons of the One Catholic [Church], walk in your way, and sing as you walk. Travelers do this in order to keep up their spirits.

Augustine of Hippo
As a youth I prayed, "Give me chastity and continence, but not right now."

Augustine of Hippo
Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that thou mayest understand.

Augustine of Hippo