St. Augustine was the bishop of Hippo (now Annaba, Algeria) from 396 to 430. A renowned theologian and prolific writer, he was also a skilled preacher and rhetorician. He is one of the Latin Fathers of the Church and, in Roman Catholicism, is formally recognized as a doctor of the church.
Notable Works: “The Confessions of St. August…
Died: August 28, 430 (aged 75) Annaba Algeria
Born: November 13, 354 Algeria Africa
Saint Augustine Quotes
“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.” ~ Saint Augustine
“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.” ~ Saint Augustine
“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.” ~ Saint Augustine
“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.” ~ Saint Augustine
“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.” ~ Saint Augustine
“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” ~ Saint Augustine
“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” ~ Saint Augustine
“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
“In order to discover the character of people we have only to observe what they love.” ~ Saint Augustine
“If God is, why is there evil? But if God is not, why is there good?” ~ Saint Augustine
“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.” ~ Saint Augustine
“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.” ~ Saint Augustine
“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.” ~ Saint Augustine
“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” ~ Saint Augustine
“Trust the past to the mercy of God, the present to His love, and the future to His providence.” ~ Saint Augustine
“Peace in society depends upon peace in the family.” ~ Saint Augustine
“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.” ~ Saint Augustine
“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.” ~ Saint Augustine
“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.” ~ Saint Augustine
“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.” ~ Saint Augustine
“The cost of obedience is small compared with the cost of disobedience.” ~ Saint Augustine
“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.” ~ Saint Augustine
“The measure of love is to love without measuring.” ~ Saint Augustine
“Sin is believing the lie that you are self-created, self-dependent and self-sustained.” ~ Saint Augustine
“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.” ~ Saint Augustine
“Because God has made us for Himself, our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.” ~ Saint Augustine
“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.” ~ Saint Augustine
“There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.” ~ Saint Augustine
“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.” ~ Saint Augustine
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”
― St. Augustine
“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.”
― Augustine of Hippo
“There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.”
― St. Augustine
“People travel to wonder
at the height of the mountains,
at the huge waves of the seas,
at the long course of the rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean,
at the circular motion of the stars,
and yet they pass by themselves
without wondering. ”
― Saint Augustine
“If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”
― Augustine
“And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, yet pass over the mystery of themselves without a thought.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“The measure of love is to love without measure.”
― Augustine of Hippo
“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love…I sought what I might love, in love with loving.”
― Augustine of Hippo
“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo
“Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.”
― Saint Augustine
“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.”
― Augustine of Hippo
“The world is a book, and those who don’t travel only read one page.”
― St Augustine
“The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“God provides the wind, Man must raise the sail. ”
― St. Augustine
“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.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“Miracles are not contrary to nature but only contrary to what we know about nature.”
― St. Augustine
“Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.”
― Saint Augustine
“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?”
― Augustine of Hippo
“Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop.”
― St. Augustin
“Patience is the companion of wisdom.”
― Saint Augustine
“In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me.”
― St. Augustine
“God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.”
― St. Augustine, City of God
“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.”
― Saint Augustine
“Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo
“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.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“In order to discover the character of people we have only to observe what they love.”
― St. Augustine
“The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo
“Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.”
- Saint Augustine of Hippo. “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.”
- Saint Augustine of Hippo. “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 of Hippo.
“Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“If we live good lives, the times are also good. As we are, such are the times.”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“Repentant tears wash out the stain of guilt.”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“Love, and do what you like.”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“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.”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“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”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“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.”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
“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 the way they are.”
-Saint Augustine of Hippo.
Saint Augustine Quotes On God
“We speak, but it is God who teaches.”
-St Augustine.
“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and thou heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
-St Augustine.
“Oh, God, to know you is life. To serve You is freedom. To praise you is the soul’s joy and delight.”
-St Augustine.
“Learn to dance, so when you get to heaven the angels know what to do with you.”
-St Augustine.
“O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams. Oh Lord, give me chastity but do not give it yet.”
-St Augustine.
“The Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them.”
-St Augustine.
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”
-St Augustine.
“You are my Lord, because You have no need of my goodness.”
-St Augustine.
“Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.”
-St Augustine.
“God provides the wind, Man must raise the sail. ”
-St Augustine.
“God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.”
-St Augustine
“He who denies the existence of God, has some reason for wishing that God did not exist.”
-St Augustine.
“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.”
-St Augustine.
“God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.”
“Tend your sick ones, O Lord Jesus Christ: and all for your love’s sake.”
-St Augustine.
“If you understood him, it would not be God.”
-St Augustine.
“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you”
-St Augustine.
“Christ is not valued at all, unless he is valued above all.”
-St Augustine.