Augustine of Hippo - Confessions

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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
O that men would know themselves to be men; and that he that glorieth would glory in the Lord.

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

Augustine of Hippo
I fell away from you, my God, and I went astray, too far astray from you, the support of my youth, and I became to myself a land of want.

Augustine of Hippo
Who else is it who calls us back from the death of error, except the life that does not know death, and the wisdom which, needing no light, enlightens minds which are in darkness, that wisdom by which the whole world, even to the leaves of trees drifting in the wind, is governed?

Augustine of Hippo
For I did not know that the soul needs to be enlightened by light from outside itself, so that it can participate in truth, because it is not itself the nature of truth.

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

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

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

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

Augustine of Hippo
The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance. The mind commands the hand to move, and it so easy that one hardly distinguishes the order from its execution. Yet mind is mind and hand is body. The mind orders the mind to will. The recipient of the order is itself, yet it does not perform it.

Augustine of Hippo
When I come to be united to thee with all my being, then there will be no more pain and toil for me, and my life shall be a real life, being wholly filled by thee.

Augustine of Hippo
You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

Augustine of Hippo
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.

Augustine of Hippo
There is a joy which is not given to the ungodly, but to those who love Thee for Thine own sake, whose joy Thou Thyself art. And this is the happy life, to rejoice to Thee, of Thee, for Thee; this it is, and there is no other.

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
Such is the strength of the burden of habit. Here I have the power to be but do not wish it. There I wish to be but lacks the power. On both grounds, I'm in misery.

Augustine of Hippo
Give me chastity and continence, but not just now.

Augustine of Hippo
I do not study to understand the transit of the stars. My soul has never sought for responses from ghosts. I detest all sacrilegious rites.

Augustine of Hippo