"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page."
"Because God has made us for Himself, our hearts are restless until they rest in Him."
"Resentment is like taking poison and hoping the other person dies."
"People travel to wonder
at the height of the mountains,
at the huge waves of the seas,
at the long course of the rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean,
at the circular motion of the stars,
and yet they pass by themselves
without wondering. "
"There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future."
"Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are."
"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."
"Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it. "
"Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe."
"If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself."
"Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee."
"Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?"
"To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement."
"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."
"God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination."
"Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop."
"Patience is the companion of wisdom."
"Christ is not valued at all, unless he is valued above all."
"Take up and read, take up and read."
"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell."
"God provides the wind, Man must raise the sail. "
"Sin is Energy in the wrong channel. "
"Miracles are not contrary to nature but only contrary to what we know about nature. "
"What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like."
"Love is the beauty of the soul"
"Hope has two beautiful daughters
anger and courage: anger that sees things the way they are, and courage to make things the way they ought to be"
"Lord, make me chaste... but not yet."
"Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you."
"Does God proclaim Himself in the wonders of creation? No. All things proclaim Him, all things speak. Their beauty is the voice by which they announce God, by which they sing, "It is you who made me beautiful, not me myself but you."
"Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation."
"Love God, and do what you like."
"God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full - there is no where for him to put it"
"Where your pleasure is, there is your treasure: where your treasure, there your heart; where your heart, there your happiness"
"I have said before, and shall say again, that I write this book for love of your love."
"Unless you believe, you will not understand."
"God grants us not always what we ask so as to bestow something preferable."
"Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce
the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility."
"Even the straws under my knees shout to distract me from prayer"
"Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand."
"Humility must accompany all our actions, must be with us everywhere; for as soon as we glory in our good works they are of no further value to our advancement in virtue. "
"Really great things, when discussed by little men, can usually make such men grow big."
"The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. (City of God, Book 19)"
"Love, and do what you will. If you keep silence, do it out of love. If you cry out, do it out of love. If you refrain from punishing, do it out of love.
"Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved thee. For see, thou wast within and I was without, and I sought thee out there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things thou hast made. Thou wast with me, but I was not with thee. These things kept me far from thee; even though they were not at all unless they were in thee. Thou didst call and cry aloud, and didst force open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and didst chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrant odors and I drew in my breath; and now I pant for thee. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for thy peace."
"Oh, God, to know you is life. To serve You is freedom. To praise you is the soul's joy and delight. Guard me with the power of Your grace here and in all places. Now and at all times, forever. Amen."
"Though defensive violence will always be 'a sad necessity' in the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men."
"Lord give me chastity and continence, but not yet"
"Dilige et quod vis fac. (Love and then what you will, do.)"
"Heaven forbid that we should believe in such a way as not to accept or seek reasons, since we could not even believe if we did not possess rational souls."
— Augustine of Hippo"Our hearts have been made for you, O God, and they shall never rest until they rest in you." "In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me." "Variation on the middle sentence: A thing is not necessarily false because it is badly expressed, nor true because it is expressed magnificently." "We made bad use of immortality, and so ended up dying; Christ made good use of mortality, so that we might end up living." "What are kingdoms without justice? They're just gangs of bandits." "It is not that we keep His commandments first and that then He loves but that He loves us and then we keep His commandments. This is that grace which is revealed to the humble but hidden from the proud." "A Christian should be an Alleluia from head to foot" "God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them." "Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he lives so as to make happiness impossible." "Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand." "Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering." "Theft is punished by Your law, O Lord, and by the law written in men's hearts, which iniquity itself cannot blot out. For what thief will suffer a thief? Even a rich thief will not suffer him who is driven to it by want. Yet had I a desire to commit robbery, and did so, compelled neither by hunger, nor poverty through a distaste for well-doing, and a lustiness of iniquity. For I pilfered that of which I had already sufficient, and much better. Nor did I desire to enjoy what I pilfered, but the theft and sin itself. There was a pear-tree close to our vineyard, heavily laden with fruit, which was tempting neither for its colour nor its flavour. To shake and rob this some of us wanton young fellows went, late one night (having, according to our disgraceful habit, prolonged our games in the streets until then), and carried away great loads, not to eat ourselves, but to fling to the very swine, having only eaten some of them; and to do this pleased us all the more because it was not permitted.Behold my heart, O my God; behold my heart, which You had pity upon when in the bottomless pit. Behold, now, let my heart tell You what it was seeking there, that I should be gratuitously wanton, having no inducement to evil but the evil itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved to perish. I loved my own error— not that for which I erred, but the error itself. Base soul, falling from Your firmament to utter destruction— not seeking anything through the shame but the shame itself!" "O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet." "For a sentence is not complete unless each word, once its syllables have been pronounced, gives way to make room for the next...They are set up on the course of their existence, and the faster they climb towards its zenith, the more they hasten towards the point where they exist no more." "When men cannot communicate their thoughts to each other, simply because of difference of language, all the similarity of their common human nature is of no avail to unite them in fellowship." "For you [God] are infinite and never change. In you 'today' never comes to an end: and yet our 'today' does come to an end in you, because time, as well as everything else, exists in you. If it did not, it would have no means of passing. And since your years never come to an end, for you they are simply 'today'...But you yourself are eternally the same. In your 'today' you will make all that is to exist tomorrow and thereafter, and in your 'today' you have made all that existed yesterday and for ever before." "The mind orders the body and it obeys, the mind orders itself and meets resistance." "la mesure de l'amour c'est d'aimer sans mesure" "Always add, always walk, always proceed; neither stand still, nor go back, nor deviate; he that standeth still proceedeth not; he goeth back that continueth not; he deviateth that revolteth; he goeth better that creepeth in his way than he that moveth out of his way." "My sin grew sleek on my excesses. " "Love is ever new because it never groweth old." "...it is a higher glory... to stay war itself with a word, than to slay men with the sword, and to procure or maintain peace by peace, not by war." "Though defensive violence will always be a ’sad necessity’ in the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men." "The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page" "Nemo nisi per amicitiam cognoscitur." "There can only be two basic loves... the love of God unto the forgetfulness of self, or the love of self unto the forgetfulness and denial of God." "Since God is the highest good, he would not allow any evil to exist in his works unless his omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil." "The world is a great book; he who never stirs from home, reads only a page. "The world is a book.And those who do not travel read only one page." "Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all." "Of his bounty, the Lord often grants not what we seek, so as to bestow something preferable." "Watch, O Lord, with those who wake, or watch or weep tonight, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend your sick ones, O Lord Jesus Christ; rest your weary ones; bless your dying ones; soothe your suffering ones; pity your afflicted ones; shield your joyous ones; and all for your love's sake. Amen." "Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility." "Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others." "He loves Thee too little, who loves anything together with Thee, which he loves not for Thy sake." "What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sigs and sorrows of men. This is what love looks like." "For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away. " "Inter faeces et urinam nascimur. (We are born between shit and piss.)" "The wicked have told me of things that delight them, but not such things as your law has to tell." "Too late came I to love you, O Beauty both so ancient and so new! Too late came I to love you - and behold you were with me all the time . . ." "Omnis natura, inquantum natura est, bonum est." "i understand that i understand" "The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only a page." "By means of corporal and temporal things we may comprehend the eternal and the spiritual." "What matters it to me if someone does not understand this? Let him too rejoice and say, “What is this?” Let him rejoice even at this, and let him love to find you while not finding it out, rather than, while finding it out, not to find you." "O Lord, make me pure and holy: but not yet" "To my God a heart of flame; To my fellow man a heart of love; To myself a heart of steel." "In the usual course of study I had come to a book of a certain Cicero." "The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." "God gives where he finds empty hands." "Da quod iubes et iube quod vis Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt" "Some things are to be enjoyed, others to be used, and there are others to be enjoyed and used." Two criminals were crucified with Christ. One was saved; do not despair. One was not; do not presume." |
2 comments:
That's a whole lot of Augustine! :D
WOW!!!!!! I haven't read all the quotes yet, but I will read a bit each day until I do! You have found some great quotes here, especially "If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself." And, "we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two." I;m sure everyone has different favorites, and I will have different favorites each time I revisit this page. Wonderful and thanks for all the effort to put this together. :)
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