Augustine of Hippo - God Quotes

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He who falls, falls by his own will, and he who stands, stands by God's will.

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

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

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
Let him who desires to be harsh in making demands upon his debtors consider that he is God's debtor.

Augustine of Hippo
Hear, O God. Alas, for man's sin! So saith man, and Thou pitiest him; for Thou madest him, but sin is in him Thou madest not. Who remindeth me of the sins of my infancy? for in Thy sight none is pure from sin, not even the infant whose life is but a day upon the earth.

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
The true servants of God are not solicitous that He should order them to do what they desire to do, but that they may desire to do what He orders them to do.

Augustine of Hippo
Where Scripture speaks of the world's creation, it is not plainly said whether or when the angels were created; but if mention is made, it is implicit under the name of "heaven," when it is said, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

Augustine of Hippo
Before God can deliver us from ourselves, we must undeceive ourselves.

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
But the inner part is the better part; for to it, as both ruler and judge, all these messengers of the senses report the answers of heaven and earth and all the things therein, who said, "We are not God, but he made us." My inner man knew these things through the ministry of the outer man, and I, the inner man, knew all this — I, the soul, through the senses of my body. I asked the whole frame of earth about my God, and it answered, "I am not he, but he made me."

Augustine of Hippo
True happiness is to rejoice in the truth, for to rejoice in the truth is to rejoice in You, O God, who are the truth... Those who think that there is another kind of happiness look for joy elsewhere, but theirs is not true joy.

Augustine of Hippo
For so it is, O Lord my God, I measure it! But what it is I measure, I do not know.

Augustine of Hippo
If there is something more excellent than the truth, then that is God; if not, then truth itself is God.

Augustine of Hippo
As the soul is the life of the body, so God is the life of the soul. As therefore the body perishes when the soul leaves it, so the soul dies when God departs from it.

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
When, therefore, man lives according to man, not according to God, he is like the devil.

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
Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.

Augustine of Hippo
And how shall I call upon my God, my God and Lord, since, when I call for Him, I shall be calling Him to myself? and what room is there within me, whither my God can come into me? whither can God come into me, God who made heaven and earth? is there, indeed, O Lord my God, aught in me that can contain thee?

Augustine of Hippo
For when God said, "Let there be light, and there was light," if we are justified in understanding in this light the creation of the angels, then certainly they were created partakers of the eternal light which is the unchangeable Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and whom we call the only-begotten Son of God.

Augustine of Hippo
For God loves to save and not to condemn; therefore is he patient with evil, that out of evil good may be brought.

Augustine of Hippo
Whoever, therefore, thinks that he understands the divine scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build on the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all. Thus a man supported by faith, hope, and charity, with an unshaken hold upon them does not need the scriptures... And many live by these three things in solitude without books.

Augustine of Hippo
On the words of Ps. 21:3: "O My God, I shall cry day by day, and Thou wilt not hear".

Augustine of Hippo
I read there [in "certain books of the Platonists"] that God the Word was born "not of flesh nor of blood, nor of the will of man, nor the will of the flesh, but of God." But, that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" — I found this nowhere there.

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
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
It is He who gave to this intellectual nature free-will of such a kind, that if he wishes to forsake God his blessedness, misery should forthwith result.

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