Saint Augustine

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.
Saint Augustine

Give me chastity and continence, but not quite yet.
Saint Augustine

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.
Saint Augustine

If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.
Saint Augustine

If I am given a formula, and I am ignorant of its meaning, it cannot teach me anything, but if I already know it what does the formula teach me?
Saint Aurelius Augustine

Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
Saint Augustine

This world's a bubble.
Saint Aurelius Augustine

Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again.
Saint Augustine

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

I want my friend to miss me as long as I miss him.
Saint Augustine

Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.
Saint Augustine

The soul, which is spirit, can not dwell in dust; it is carried along to dwell in the blood.
Saint Aurelius Augustine

Bad company is like a nail driven into a post, which, after the first and second blow, may be drawn out with little difficulty; but being once driven up to the head, the pincers cannot take hold to draw it out, but which can only be done by the destruction of the wood.
Saint Aurelius Augustine

The verdict of the world is conclusive.
Saint Aurelius Augustine

We make a ladder for ourselves of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.
Saint Aurelius Augustine

The spiritual virtue of a sacrament is like light; although it passes among the impure, it is not polluted.
Saint Aurelius Augustine

Blessedness consists in the accomplishment of our desires, and in our having only regular desires.
Saint Aurelius Augustine

God is best known in not knowing him.
Saint Aurelius Augustine

A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.
Saint Augustine

Don't you believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?
Saint Augustine

In doing what we ought we deserve no praise, because it is our duty.
Saint Aurelius Augustine

Custom is second nature.
Saint Aurelius Augustine

He fashioned hell for the inquisitive.
Saint Aurelius Augustine

The purpose of all war is peace.
Saint Aurelius Augustine

He who labours, prays.
Saint Aurelius Augustine

Repentant tears wash out the stain of guilt.
Saint Aurelius Augustine

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.
Saint Augustine

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.
Saint Augustine

The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness, and peril of falling?
Saint Aurelius Augustine

Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.
Saint Augustine

Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.
Saint Augustine

Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.
Saint Augustine

By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity.
Saint Augustine

It is not the punishment but the cause that makes the martyr.
Saint Augustine

God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.
Saint Augustine

This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections.
Saint Augustine

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
Saint Augustine

Hear the other side.
Saint Augustine

I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.''
Saint Augustine

Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.
Saint Augustine

Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.
Saint Augustine

He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.
Saint Augustine

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.
Saint Augustine

Passion is the evil in adultery. If a man has no opportunity of living with another man's wife, but if it is obvious for some reason that he would like to do so, and would do so if he could, he is no less guilty than if he was caught in the act.
Saint Augustine

The purpose of all wars, is peace.
Saint Augustine

I found thee not, O Lord, without, because I erred in seeking thee without that wert within.
Saint Augustine

O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.
Saint Augustine

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.
Saint Augustine

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.
Saint Augustine

Oh Lord, give me chastity, but do not give it yet.
Saint Augustine