Saint Augustine Quotes

Don't go outside; get back to yourself, in the inner man lies the Truth.

So give to the poor; I'm begging you, I'm warning you, I'm commanding you, I'm ordering you.

Seek not abroad, for in the inner man dwells the truth.

When all is said and done, is there any more wonderful sight, any moment when man's reason is nearer to some sort of contact with the nature of the world than the sowing of seeds, the planting of cuttings, the transplanting of shrubs or the grafting of slips?

Love and do what you want. If you stop talking, you will stop talking with love; if you shout, you will shout with love; if you correct, you will correct with love.

We are and we know we are and we love to be it and know it.

The most venerable, clearly understood, enlightened, and reliable constant in the world is not only that we want to be happy, but that we want only to be so. Our very nature requires it of us.

Truth is not private property.

Teach correctly... Find delight in contemplation.

You have enemies. For who can live on this earth without them? Take heed to yourselves: love them. In no way can your enemy so hurt you by his violence, as you hurt yourself if you love him not.

I have said before, and I shall say again, that I write this book for love of your love.

The diversity of language alienates man from man

The arrogance is not greatness but swelling; and the swelling seems big but it's not healthy.

Patience is the companion of wisdom.

Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they would. The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect that much.

Peace in society depends upon peace in the family.

Blessed is he who devotes his life to great and noble ends, and who forms his well-considered plans with deliberate wisdom.

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

It is salutary for us to learn to hold cheap such things, be they good or evil, as attach indifferently to good men and bad, and to covet those good things which belong only to good men, and flee those evils which belong only to evil men.

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away. -Ronald Reagan In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?

Custom is second nature.

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

Singing is a lover's thing.

For if a thing is not diminished by being shared with others, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned and not shared.

The people who remained victorious were less like conquerors than conquered.

No man has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due to his neighbor.

The argument is at an end.

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

I will not live an instant that I do not live in love. Whoever loves does all things without suffering, or, suffering, loves his suffering.

It is not often that we use language correctly; usually we use it incorrectly, though we understand each others meaning.

The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.

Love and say it with your life.

Because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false.

Love has reasons that reason knows not.

How can the past and future be, when the past no longer is, and the future is not yet? As for the present, if it were always present and never moved on to become the past, it would not be time, but eternity.

The human race is inquisitive about other people's lives, but negligent to correct their own.

My love is my weight. Because of it, I move.

Why is it that we remember with difficulty and without difficulty forget? Learn with difficulty and without difficulty remain ignorant?

Everyone who observes himself doubting observes a truth, and about that which he observes he is certain; therefore he is certain about a truth. Everyone therefore who doubts whether truth exists has in himself a truth on which not to doubt.... Hence one who can doubt at all ought not to doubt the existence of truth.

What are kingdoms without justice? They're just gangs of bandits.

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

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.

Education is the food of youth, the delight of old age, the ornament of prosperity, the refuge and comfort of adversity, and the provocation to grace in the soul.

If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing.

The entire most beautiful order of things that are very good, when their measures have been accomplished, is to pass away.

You have found that you were more secure before you accumulated so much. See what greed has imposed on you: You have filled your house and now you fear burglars. You have hoarded money and lost sleep. See what greed has commanded you: "Do this!" And you did it.

It’s not in the book or in the writer that readers discern the truth of what they read; they see it in themselves, if the light of truth has penetrated their minds.

Any woman who does not give birth to as many children as she is capable is guilty of murder.

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

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

When the king asked him what he meant by infesting the sea, the pirate defiantly replied:The same as you do when you infest the whole world;but because I do it with a little ship I am called a robber,and because you do it with a great fleet, you are an emperor.

Believe that others are better than you in the debths of their soul, although outwardly you may appear better than they.

The measure of love is to love without measuring.

We both exist and know that we exist, and rejoice in this knowledge.

You aspire to great things? Begin with the little ones.

I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love...I sought what I might love, in love with loving.

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

Choose to love whomsoever thou wilt: all else will follow.

The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.

In the usual course of study I had come to a book of a certain Cicero.