Saint Augustine Quotes on Belief, God, Virtues and Faith

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.
Stars
Saint Augustine

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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.
Time Wish
Saint Augustine

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

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

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

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The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
Travelling World
Saint Augustine

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Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
Saint Augustine

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

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

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

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

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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

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

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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.
Greatness Desire Humbleness
Saint Augustine

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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.
Good Greatness Beauty
Saint Augustine

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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.
Good Time
Saint Augustine

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Patience is the companion of wisdom.
Patience Wisdom
Saint Augustine

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

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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.
Experience Light Mind
Saint Augustine

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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.
Soul Virtues Humbleness
Saint Augustine

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The purpose of all wars, is peace.
Peace Purpose
Saint Augustine

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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 Eyes
Saint Augustine

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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.
Forgiveness
Saint Augustine

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In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?
Government Justice
Saint Augustine

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Love is the beauty of the soul.
Love Beauty Soul
Saint Augustine

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

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The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.
Experience Words
Saint Augustine

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

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

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The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.
Good Wickedness
Saint Augustine

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

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

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Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.
Necessity Wisdom
Saint Augustine

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

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Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.
Contribution Justice
Saint Augustine

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

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

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There is something in humility which strangely exalts the heart.
Heart Humbleness
Saint Augustine

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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.
Wisdom
Saint Augustine

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Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
Restraint
Saint Augustine

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

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If we live good lives, the times are also good. As we are, such are the times.
Good Life
Saint Augustine

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It seems to me that an unjust law is no law at all.
Law
Saint Augustine

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He that is jealous is not in love.
Love Jealousy
Saint Augustine

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Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.
Nature Wonder
Saint Augustine

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The desire is thy prayers; and if thy desire is without ceasing, thy prayer will also be without ceasing. The continuance of your longing is the continuance of your prayer.
Prayer Desire
Saint Augustine

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Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt.
Saint Augustine

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Punishment is justice for the unjust.
Penalty / Chastisement Justice
Saint Augustine

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He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.
Wickedness
Saint Augustine

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

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God is best known in not knowing him.
Saint Augustine

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Hear the other side.
Saint Augustine

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God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.
Good Wickedness
Saint Augustine

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Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full, that thou mayest be filled with that whereof thou art empty.
Art
Saint Augustine

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Love, and do what you like.
Love
Saint Augustine

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

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

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If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don't accept, because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend.
Saint Augustine

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The greatest evil is physical pain.
Pain Wickedness
Saint Augustine

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We cannot pass our guardian angel's bounds, resigned or sullen, he will hear our sighs.
Angel
Saint Augustine

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

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

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

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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 Augustine

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The same thing which is now called Christian religion existed among the ancients. They have begun to call 'Christian' the true religion which existed before.
Saint Augustine

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No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.
Nothing Duty
Saint Augustine

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This world's a bubble.
World
Saint Augustine

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To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
Self-Denial Restraint
Saint Augustine

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Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.
Greatness Soul Heart
Saint Augustine

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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.
Opportunities Zeal Wives
Saint Augustine

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To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.
Saint Augustine

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What I needed most was to love and to be loved, eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me; and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers or jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by burst of anger and quarrels.
Love Anger Fear
Saint Augustine

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Custom is second nature.
Nature
Saint Augustine

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

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

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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

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To seek the highest good is to live well.
Good
Saint Augustine

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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 Augustine

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

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Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.
Heart
Saint Augustine

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If we did not have rational souls, we would not be able to believe.
Saint Augustine

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We are certainly in a common class with the beasts; every action of animal life is concerned with seeking bodily pleasure and avoiding pain.
Life Pain
Saint Augustine

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