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Saint Augustine Quotes - Page 20

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We can know what God is not, but we cannot know what He is.

We can know what God is not, but we cannot know what He is.

Saint Augustine
God, Knows

There is no health in those who are displeased by an element in Your creation, just as there was none in me when I was displeased by many things You had made. Because my soul didn't dare to say that my God displeased me, it refused to attribute to You whatever was displeasing.

Saint Augustine
Soul, Contentment, Elements

Sin is to a nature what blindness is to an eye. The blindness of an evil or defect which is a witness to the fact that the eye was created to see the light and, hence, the very lack of sight is the proof that the eye was meant... to be the one particularly capable of seeing the light. Were it not for this capacity, there would be no reason to think of blindness as a misforture.

Saint Augustine
Eye, Thinking, Light
Saint Augustine (2008). “The City of God, Books XVII–XXII (The Fathers of the Church, Volume 24)”, p.417, CUA Press

In the house of God there is never ending festival; the angel choir makes eternal holiday; the presence of God's face gives joy that never fails.

Saint Augustine
Inspirational, Holiday, Angel

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.

Saint Augustine
Light, Soul, Needs
Saint Augustine (1998). “The Confessions”, p.69, OUP Oxford

Every city is a living body.

Saint Augustine
Cities, Body

Give me yourself, O my God, give yourself back to me. Lo, I love you, but if my love is too mean, let me love more passionately. I cannot gauge my love, nor know how far it fails, how much more love I need for my life to set its course straight into your arms, never swerving until hidden in the covert of your face.

Saint Augustine
Love You, Mean, Love Is
"The Confessions".

Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self; the heavenly by the love of God.

Saint Augustine
Self, Cities, Two
Saint Augustine of Hippo (2016). “Saint Augustine of Hippo Collection [50 Books]”, p.9928, Aeterna Press

I was looking for something to love, for I was in love with loving, and I hated security and a smooth way, free from snares.

Saint Augustine
Love
"Confessions". Book by Augustine. Book 3, 397.

Our life is a gymnasium of desire.... When Christians say "God," what do we wish to express? This word is all that we yearn for."

Saint Augustine
Faith, Christian, Inspiration

If by fate anyone means the will or power of God, let him keep his meaning but mend his language; for fate commonly means a necessary process which will have its way apart from the will of God and men.

Saint Augustine
Mean, Fate, Men

Let our lives be good, and the times are good. We make our times; such as we are, such are the times.

Saint Augustine
Life Is Good, Positivity, Be Good
Saint Augustine of Hippo, Aeterna Press (1883). “Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament”, p.261, Aeterna Press

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?

Saint Augustine
Heaven, Calling, Earth
Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Saint Augustine of Hippo (2006). “The Confessions of Saint Augustine”, p.5, 1st World Publishing

The dove loves when it quarrels; the wolf hates when it flatters.

Saint Augustine
Hate, Dove, Quarrels

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.

Saint Augustine
Angel, Son, Light
Saint Augustine of Hippo, Catholic Way Publishing (2015). “The City of God”, p.470, Catholic Way Publishing

He who commends the nature of the soul as the supreme good, and condemns the nature of the flesh as evil, at once both carnally desires the soul, and carnally flies the flesh, because he feels thus from human vanity, not from divine truth.

Saint Augustine
Vanity, Evil, Soul

Therefore, give to the poor. I beg you, I admonish you, I charge you, I command you to give.

Saint Augustine
Giving, Poor, Command
"Sermon 61:13, On Almsgiving". "The Fathers Of The Church A New Translation Saint Augustine Commentary...". Book by Ludwig Schopp, Volume 11/3, p. 286, 1951.

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.

Saint Augustine
Love, Heart, Heaven
Saint Augustine, Henry Chadwick (2008). “The Confessions”, p.183, Oxford Paperbacks

What do I love when I love my God?

Saint Augustine
Saint Augustine (1998). “The Confessions”, p.184, OUP Oxford

My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed... And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is.

Saint Augustine
Light, Sensual, Mind

Quid est ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio. What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobodyasksme; but if Iamasked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.

Saint Augustine
Time, Trying, Baffled

Indifferent acts are judged by their ends sins are judged by themselves.

Saint Augustine
Sin, Virtue, Ends

Tolle, lege: take up and read.

Saint Augustine
Tolle
'Confessions' (397-8) bk. 8, ch.12

Lord, who art always the same, give that I know myself, give that I know Thee.

Saint Augustine
Art, Giving, Worship

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.

Saint Augustine
Inspiring, Philosophical, Justice
"Majority of one". Book by Sydney J. Harris, p. 283, 1957.

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