Saint Augustine Quotes

“I had a clear idea about what time is till I was asked to explain it and ceased to understand it altogether as soon as I began explaining it.”

“People travel to marvel at the mountains, seas, rivers and stars and they pass right by themselves without astonishment.”

“The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave, and not the slave of a single man, but- what is worse - the slave of as many masters as he has vices.”

“To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of eternal things; to knowledge, the rational knowledge of temporal things.”

“For I wondered that others, subject to death, did live, since he whom I loved, as if he should never die, was dead; and I wondered yet more that myself, who was to him a second self, could live, he being dead. Well said one of his friend, "Thou half of my soul"; for I felt that my soul and his soul were "one soul in two bodies": and therefore was my life a horror to me, because I would not live halved. And therefore perchance I feared to die, lest he whom I had much loved should die wholly.”

“Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.”

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

“Human law cannot punish or forbid all evil, since while doing away with evils it would do away with many good things, which would hinder the advance of the common good.”

“Unjust laws aren't laws at all.”

“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.”

“One loving heart sets another on fire.”

“Oh, beauty, ever ancient and ever new.”

“You are what you love.”

“The reward of patience Is patience.”

“Quid est ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio. What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobodyasksme; but if Iamasked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.”

“Fortitude is the disposition of soul which enables us to despise all inconveniences and the loss of things not in our power.”

“Let necessity, and not your will, slay the enemy who fights against you.”

“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.”

“Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a terrorist. You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor.”

“Be always displeased with what you are if you wish to be what you are not. Always add, always walk, always proceed. Neither stand still nor go back nor deviate.”

“My weight is my love.”

“I was unhappy and so is every soul unhappy which is tied to its love for mortal things; when it loses them, it is torn in pieces, and it is then that it comes to realize the unhappiness which was there even before it lost them.”

“Eternity is the now that does not pass away.”

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

“What difference, if you are mistaken? For if I am mistaken, I am. For he who is not, assuredly cannot be mistaken; and therefore I am, if I am mistaken. Therefore because I am if I am mistaken, how am I mistaken that I am, when it is sure that I am, if I am mistaken.”