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
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
I will plant my feet on that step where my parents put me as a child, until self-evident truth comes to light.

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
When the king asked him what he meant by infesting the sea, the pirate defiantly replied:
The same as you do when you infest the whole world;
but because I do it with a little ship I am called a robber,
and because you do it with a great fleet, you are an emperor.

Augustine of Hippo
When the apostle James was talking about faith and works against those who thought their faith was enough, and didn't want to have good works, he said, You believe God is one; you do well; the demons also believe, and tremble. (Jas 2:19)

Augustine of Hippo
And I entered and beheld with the eye of my soul... the Light Unchangeable... He that knows the Truth, knows what that Light is; and he that knows It, knows Eternity.

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
Yet we must say something when those who say the most are saying nothing.

Augustine of Hippo
For, as it is written in the book of the Prophets: 'And the angel that spoke in me, said to me...' He does not say, 'Spoke to me' but 'Spoke in me'...

Augustine of Hippo
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.

Augustine of Hippo
The Apostle says: I make up in my flesh what is lacking to the sufferings of Christ (Col. 1:24). I make up, he tells us, not what is lacking to my sufferings, but what is lacking to the sufferings of Christ; not in Christ's flesh, but in mine. not in Christ's flesh, but in mine. Christ is still suffering, not in His own flesh which He took with Him into heaven, but in my flesh, which is still suffering on earth.

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
For a sentence is not complete unless each word, once its syllables have been pronounced, gives way to make room for the next...They are set up on the course of their existence, and the faster they climb towards its zenith, the more they hasten towards the point where they exist no more.

Augustine of Hippo
Free curiosity has greater power to stimulate learning than rigorous coercion. Nevertheless, the free ranging flux of curiosity is channeled by discipline under Your Law.

Augustine of Hippo
Now the Apostle, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says, "Knowledge inflates: but love edifies." The only correct inerpretation of this saying is that knowledge is valuable when charity informs it. Without charity, knowledge inflates; that is, it exalts man to an arrogance which is nothing but a kind of windy emptiness.

Augustine of Hippo
My love for you, Lord, is not an uncertain feeling, but a matter of concious certainty. With your word you pierced my heart, and I loved you. But heaven and earth and everything in them on all sides tell me to love you.

Augustine of Hippo
Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale?... A gang is a group of men... in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention. If this villainy... acquires territory, establishes a base, captures cities and subdues people, it then openly arrogates to itself the title of kingdom.

Augustine of Hippo
What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.

Augustine of Hippo
O eternal truth and true love and beloved eternity! You are my God; to you I sigh by day and by night. And when I first knew you, you raised me up so that I could see that there was something to see and that I still lacked the ability to see it. And you beat back the weakness of my sight, blazing upon me with your rays, and I trembled in love and in dread...

Augustine of Hippo
When large numbers of people share their joy in common, the happiness of each is greater because each adds fuel to the other's flame.

Augustine of Hippo
Just think of the illimitable abundance and the marvelous loveliness of light, or of the beauty of the sun and moon and stars.

Augustine of Hippo
Beauty grows in you to the extent that love grows, because charity itself is the soul's beauty.

Augustine of Hippo
As to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth where the sun rises when it sets to us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground credible. Even if some unknown landmass is there, and not just ocean, there was only one pair of original ancestors, and it is inconceivable that such distant regions should have been peopled by Adam's descendants.

Augustine of Hippo
Every good and true Christian should understand that wherever he may find the truth it is his Lord's.

Augustine of Hippo