Augustine of Hippo Quotes

252 Sourced Quotes

What has the Church done to thee, that thou shouldst wish to decapitate her? Thou wouldst take away her Head, and believe in the Head alone, despising the body. Vain is thy service, and false thy devotion to the Head. For to sever it from the body is an injury to both Head and body.

Augustine of Hippo
Who is this that cries from the ends of the earth? Who is this one man who reaches to the extremities of the universe? He is one, but that one is unity. He is one, not one in a single place, but the cry of this one man comes from the remotest ends of the earth. But how can this one man cry out from the ends of the earth, unless he be one in all?

Augustine of Hippo
Where is the thief who cannot find bad when he hunts for it?

Augustine of Hippo
The mind itself, its love of itself and it knowledge of itself are a kind of trinity.

Augustine of Hippo
The truth is rather in what God reveals than in what groping men surmise.

Augustine of Hippo
Let us rejoice and give thanks. Not only are we become Christians, but we are become Christ. My brothers, do you understand the grace of God that is given us? Wonder, rejoice, for we are made Christ! If He is the Head, and we the members, then together He and we are the whole man.... This would be foolish pride on our part, were it not a gift of his bounty. But this is what He promised by the mouth of the Apostle: You are the body of Christ, and severally His members (1 Cor. 12:27).

Augustine of Hippo
We were ensnared by the wisdom of the serpent; we are set free by the foolishness of God.

Augustine of Hippo
Are you not able to do what these men and women have done?

Augustine of Hippo
I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love... I sought what I might love, in love with loving.

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

Augustine of Hippo
We make a ladder of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.

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

Augustine of Hippo