Quotes by Saint Augustine

“A temptation arises: it is the wind. It disturbs you: it is the surging of the seas. This is the time to awaken Christ and let Him remind you of these words, “Who can this be? Even the wind and the waves obey him.””

“He cannot have God for his Father who will not have the Church for his mother.”

“The bread that you store up belongs to the hungry; the coat that lies in your chest belongs to the naked; the gold that you have hidden in the ground belongs to the poor.”

“The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.”

“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.”

“God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.”

“There is something in humility which strangely exalts the heart.”

“Not the punishment but the cause makes the martyr.”

“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.”

“A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.”

“Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.”

“O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.”

“Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.”

“The mind commands the body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance.”

“Organic life beneath the shoreless wavesWas born and nursd in oceans pearly caves;First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;These, as successive generations bloom,New powers acquire and larger limbs assume;Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,And breathing realms of fin and feet and wing.”

“Hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are anger and courage. Anger that things are the way they are. Courage to make them the way they ought to be.”

“Hear the other side.”

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

Faith is to believe what we do not see the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.

Seek not to understand that thou mayest believe but believe that thou mayest understand.