Augustine of Hippo Quotes

Christian theologian, philosopher, and saint (354–430)

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St. Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a Christian theologian, rhetor, North African bishop, Doctor of the Catholic Church, saint, and a philosopher influenced in his early years by Manichaeism and the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus.

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Native Name: Aurelius Augustinus

Alternative Names: Saint Augustine • Saint Austin • Augustine • St. Augoustinos • St. Augustine of Hippo • Aurelius Augustine • Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis • St. Augustine • Augustinus • Saint Augustine of Hippo • Augustinus, Aurelius • bishop of Hippo

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Our whole business therefore in this life is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen.

...It is no less impossible for us not to taste as bitter the death of those whose life for us was such a source of sweetness.

O God, who is ever at work and ever at rest. May I be ever at work and ever at rest.

So anyone who thinks that he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding build up this double love of God and neighbor, has not yet succeeded in understanding them.

For what is the self-complacent man but a slave to his own self-praise.

For in our hope we are saved.

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.

But it must not be supposed that folly is as powerful as truth, just because it can, if it likes, shout louder and longer than truth.

Lord give me chastity and self control - but not yet.

I fell away from you, my God, and I went astray, too far astray from you, the support of my youth, and I became to myself a land of want.

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.

Some things are to be enjoyed, others to be used, and there are others to be enjoyed and used.

O mortals, how long will you be heavy-hearted? Life has come down to you, and are you reluctant to ascend and live? But what room is there for you to ascend, you with your high-flown ways and lofty talk? Come down, that you may ascend, ascend even to God...

A sense of Deity is inscribed on every heart. Nay, even idolatry is ample evidence of this fact.

I poured my soul into the dust by loving a man who was soon to die, as if he would live forever.