Saint Augustine Quotes

“No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.”

“Let us, on both sides, lay aside all arrogance. Let us not, on either side, claim that we have already discovered the truth. Let us seek it together as something which is known to neither of us. For then only may we seek it, lovingly and tranquilly, if there be no bold presumption that it is already discovered and possessed.”

“Just think of the illimitable abundance and the marvelous loveliness of light, or of the beauty of the sun and moon and stars.”

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

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

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

“Love is ever new because it never groweth old.”

“Be always displeased at what thou art, if thou desirest to attain to what thou art not.”

“This entire most beautiful order of good things is going to pass away after its measure has been exhausted; for both morning and evening were made in them.”

“Solvitur ambulando . . . it is solved by walking.”

“You have been professing yourself reluctant to throw off your load of illusion because truth was uncertain. Well, it is certain now, yet the burden still weighs you down, while other people are given wings on freer shoulders, people who have not worn themselves out with research, nor spent a decade and more reflecting on these questions.”

“All the dancer's gestures are signs of things, and the dance called rational, because it aptly signifies and displays something over and above the pleasure of the senses.”

“Temperance is love surrendering itself wholly to Him who is its object; courage is love bearing all things gladly for the sake of Him who is its object; justice is love serving only Him who is its object, and therefore rightly ruling; prudence is love making wise distinction between what hinders and what helps itself.”

“What you are must always displease you, if you would attain to that which you are not.”

“When large numbers of people share their joy in common, the happiness of each is greater because each adds fuel to the other's flame.”

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

“When [men] go to war, what they want is to impose on their enemies the victor's will and call it peace.”

“Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.”

“The playthings of our elders are called business.”

“This world's a bubble.”

“A marriage without children is the world without the sun.”

“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.”

“...If humility does not precede all that we do, our efforts are fruitless.”

“To dye oneself with paints in order to have a rosier or a paler complexion is a lying counterfeit.”

“Consequently, if the republic is the weal of the people, and there is no people if it be not associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and if there is no right where there is no justice, then most certainly it follows that there is no republic where there is no justice.”