Saint augustine quotes

The cost of obedience is small compared with the cost of disobedience.

He who has God has everything; he who has everything but God has nothing.

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.

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.

Better that I find you, God, and leave the questions unanswered, than to find the answers without finding you.

If you are suffering from a bad man's injustice, forgive him lest there be two bad men.

I learned most, not from those who taught me but from those who talked with me.

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

O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.

God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.

To withhold forgiveness is to take poison and expect the unforgiven to die.

To sing is to pray twice.

There is a God-shaped vacuum in every man that only Christ can fill.

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.

Love has reasons that reason knows not.

We count on God's mercy for our past mistakes, on God's love for our present needs, on God's sovereignty for our future.

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.

Beware of despairing about yourself: you are commanded to put your trust in God, and not in yourself.

We should never use the truth to wound.

If God seems slow in responding, it is because He is preparing a better gift. He will not deny us. God withholds what you are not yet ready for. He wants you to have a lively desire for His greatest gifts. All of which is to say, pray always and do not lose heart.

Do not believe yourself healthy. Immortality is health; this life is a long sickness.

The measure of love is to love without measuring.

Take care of your body as if you were going to live forever; and take care of your soul as if you were going to die tomorrow.

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.

In order to discover the character of people we have only to observe what they love.

Every morning you put on your clothes to cover your nakedness and protect your body from inclement weather. Why don't you also clothe your soul with the garment of faith? Remember each morning the truths of your creed, and look at yourself in the mirror of your faith. Otherwise, your soul will soon be naked with the nakedness of oblivion.

Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.

Because God has made us for Himself, our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.

No one can begin a new life, unless he repent of the old.

If you are pleased with what you are, you have stopped already. If you say, "It is enough," you are lost. Keep on walking, moving forward, trying for the goal.

In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me.

He who denies the existence of God, has some reason for wishing that God did not exist.

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.

Do not follow any road, but that which Christ trod. This road seems hard, but it is safe.

Desire only God, and your heart will be satisfied.

Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop.

Let us leave a little room for reflection in our lives, room too for silence. Let us look within ourselves and see whether there is some delightful hidden place inside where we can be free of noise and argument. Let us hear the Word of God in stillness and perhaps we will then come to understand it.

Men are always ready to nose around and find out about other's lives, but they feel lazy to know themselves and correct their own life.

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

Moral character is assessed not by what a man knows but by what he loves

The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.

When God is our strength, it is strength indeed; when our strength is our own, it is only weakness.

Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.

It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.

Your first task is to be dissatisfied with yourself, fight sin, and transform yourself into something better. Your second task is to put up with the trials and temptations of this world that will be brought on by the change in your life and to persevere to the very end in the midst of these things.

It is no advantage to be near the light if the eyes are closed.

In all trouble you should seek God. You should not set Him over against your troubles, but within them. God can only relieve your troubles if you in your anxiety cling to Him. Trouble should not really be thought of as this thing or that in particular, for our whole life on earth involves trouble; and through the troubles of our earthly pilgrimage we find God.

Love God, and do what you like.

What is reprehensible is that while leading good lives themselves and abhorring those of wicked men, some, fearing to offend, shut their eyes to evil deeds instead of condemning them and pointing out their malice.

If you understand, it is not God.

Learn to dance, so when you get to heaven the angels know what to do with you.

Before God can deliver us we must undeceive ourselves.

God's love is unconditional. Be sure that yours is too!

If you are silent, be silent out of love. If you speak, speak out of love.

Cursed is everyone who places his hope in changing the nature of man

The sole purpose of life is to gain merit for life in eternity.

God has no need of your money, but the poor have. You give it to the poor, and God receives it.

It is human to err, but it is devilish to remain willfully in error.

To be under pressure is inescapable. Pressure takes place through all the world; war, siege, the worries of state. We all know men who grumble under these pressures and complain. They are cowards. They lack splendour. But there is another sort of man who is under the same pressure but does not complain, for it is the friction which polishes him. It is the pressure which refines and makes him noble

Patience is the companion of wisdom.

Our heart is restless until it rests in You.

That your enemies have been created is God's doing; that they hate you and wish to ruin you is their own doing. What should you say about them in your mind? "Lord be merciful to them, forgive them their sins, put the fear of God in them, change them!" You are loving in them not what they are, but what you would have them to become.

Two criminals were crucified with Christ. One was saved; do not despair. One was not; do not presume.

There is no love without hope, no hope without love, and neither hope nor love without faith.

Peace in society depends upon peace in the family.

Two works of mercy set a person free: Forgive and you will be forgiven, and give and you will receive.

The Old (Testament) is in the New (Testament) revealed, the New is in the Old concealed.

Sin is believing the lie that you are self-created, self-dependent and self-sustained.

There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.

Let us understand that God is a physician, and that suffering is a medicine for salvation, not a punishment for damnation.

All those who belong to Jesus Christ are fastened with Him to the cross.

God provides the wind, Man must raise the sail.

Sin is looking for the right thing in the wrong place.

Go forth on your path, as it exists only through your walking.

God does not expect us to submit our faith to him without reason, but the very limits of our reason make faith a necessity.

Attract them by the way you live.

Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not.

Where your pleasure is, there is your treasure: where your treasure, there your heart; where your heart, there your happiness

Love and say it with your life.

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending.

We must understand then, that even though God doesn't always give us what we want, He always gives us what we need for our salvation.

Lord, teach me to know you, and to know myself.

Keep on adding, keep on walking, keep on progressing: do not delay on the road, do not go back, do not deviate.

God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.

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?

The greatest kindness one can render to any man is leading him to truth.

The wicked exist in this world either to be converted or that through them the good may exercise patience.

No one can have God as his father who does not have the Church as his mother.

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

Therefore once for all this short command is given to you. 'Love and do what you will.' If you keep silent, keep silent by love; if you speak, speak by love; if you correct, correct by love; if you pardon, pardon by love: let love be rooted in you, and from the root nothing but good can grow.

The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.

It is easy to want things from the Lord and yet not want the Lord Himself, as though the gift could ever be preferable to the Giver.

Do you desire security? Here you have it. The Lord says to you, "I will never abandon you, I will always be with you." If a good man made you such a promise, you would trust him. God makes it, and do you doubt? Do you seek a support more sure than the word of God, which is infallible? Surely, He has made the promise, He has written it, He has pledged His word for it, it is most certain.

If God is, why is there evil? But if God is not, why is there good?

Trials and tribulations offer us a chance to make reparation for our past faults and sins. On such occasions the Lord comes to us like a physician to heal the wounds left by our sins. Tribulation is the divine medicine.

Do not be afraid to throw yourself on the Lord! He will not draw back and let you fall! Put your worries aside and throw yourself on him; He will welcome you and heal you.

Christ is not valued at all, unless he is valued above all.

Do what you can and pray for what you cannot yet do.

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.

Give her two red roses, each with a note. The first note says For the woman I love and the second, For my best friend.

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

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

He who is filled with love is filled with God himself.

If you should ask me what are the ways of God, I would tell you that the first is humility, the second is humility, and the third is humility. Not that there are no other precepts to give, but if humility does not preceed all that we do, our efforts are fruitless.

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

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.

To seek the greatest good is to live well, and to live well is nothing other than to love God with the whole heart, the whole soul, and the whole mind: It is therefore obvious that this love must be kept whole and uncorrupt, that is temperance; it should not be overcome with difficulties, that is fortitude, it must not be subservient to anything else, that is justice; it must discriminate among things so as not to be deceived by falsity or fraud, that is prudence.

To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.

Unhappy is the soul enslaved by the love of anything that is mortal.

A Christian is: a mind through which Christ thinks, a heart through which Christ loves, a voice through which Christ speaks, and a hand through which Christ helps.

Beware of bad Catholics.

Trust the past to the mercy of God, the present to His love, and the future to His providence.

Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.

Put no faith in salvation through the political order.

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

Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you.

Fasting cleanses the soul, raises the mind, subjects one’s flesh to the spirit, renders the heart contrite and humble, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, quenches the fire of lust, and kindles the true light of chastity.

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

God of our life, there are days when the burdens we carry chafe our shoulders and weigh us down; when the road seems dreary and endless, the skies gray and threatening; when our lives have no music in them, and our hearts are lonely, and our souls have lost their courage. Flood the path with light, run our eyes to where the skies are full of promise; tune our hearts to brave music; give us the sense of comradeship with heroes and saints of every age; and so quicken our spirits that we may be able to encourage the souls of all who journey with us on the road of life, to your honor and glory.

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.

God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.

Try to acquire the virtues you believe lacking in your brothers. Then you will no longer see their defects, for you will no longer have them yourself.

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.

Symbols are powerful because they are the visible signs of invisible realities.

Truth is not private property.