Augustine of Hippo

Lord Jesus, don't let me lie when I say that I love you...and protect me, for today I could betray you.

Among us, on the other hand, 'the righteous man lives by faith.' Now, if you take away positive affirmation, you take away faith, for without positive affirmation nothing is believed. And there are truths about things unseen, and unless they are believed, we cannot attain to the happy life, which is nothing less than life eternal. It is a question whether we ought to argue with those who profess themselves ignorant not only about the eternity yet to come but also about their present existence, for they [the Academics] even argue that they do not know what they cannot help knowing. For no one can 'not know' that he himself is alive. If he is not alive, he cannot 'not know' about it or anything else at all, because either to know or to 'not know' implies a living subject. But, in such a case, by not positively affirming that they are alive, the skeptics ward off the appearance of error in themselves, yet they do not make errors simply by showing themselves alive; one cannot err who is not alive. That we live is therefore not only true, but it is altogether certain as well. And there are many things that are thus true and certain concerning which, if we withhold positive assent, this ought not to be regarded as a higher wisdom but actually a sort of dementia.

You never depart from us, but yet, only with difficulties do we return to You.

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.

Do not feel surprise at being schooled amid toil: you are being schooled for a wondrous destiny.

This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections.

Such is the strength of the burden of habit. Here I have the power to be but do not wish it. There I wish to be but lacks the power. On both grounds, I'm in misery.

What do I love when I love my God?

We speak, but it is God who teaches.

There can only be two basic loves... the love of God unto the forgetfulness of self, or the love of self unto the forgetfulness and denial of God.

The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. (City of God, Book 19)

If you understood him, it would not be God.

Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.

Yet we must say something when those who say the most are saying nothing.

It__ 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.

For what am I to myself without You, but a guide to my own downfall?

A Christian should be an Alleluia from head to foot

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.