Saint Augustine
Where was my heart to flee for refuge from my heart? Whither was I to fly, where I would not follow? In what place should I not be prey to myself?Collection: Wisdom
There is no possible source of evil except good.Collection: Philosophical
So while he made you without you, he doesn't justify you without you.Collection: Without You
Who can control this when its appetite is aroused? No one! In the very movement of this appetite, then, it has no "mode" that responds to the decisions of the will ... Yet what he wishes he cannot accomplish ... In the very movement of the appetite, it has no mode corresponding to the decision of the will.Collection: Decision
If you understood him, it would not be God.Collection: Christian Inspirational
It is salutary for us to learn to hold cheap such things, be they good or evil, as attach indifferently to good men and bad, and to covet those good things which belong only to good men, and flee those evils which belong only to evil men.Collection: Men
Though in the order of nature angels rank above men, yet, by scale of justice, good men are of greater value than bad angels.Collection: Angel
Let no one flatter himself; of himself he is Satan. Let man take sin, which is his own, and leave righteousness with God.Collection: Men
Charity is the root of all good works.Collection: Roots
Every infinity... is made finite to God.Collection: God
Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they would. The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect that much.Collection: Ninety
Alternate translation: Come brethren, if you have a mind to be ingrafted in the vine, It is a pity to see you lopped off in this manner From the stock. Reckon up the prelates in the very see of Peter; And in that order of fathers see which has succeeded which. This is the rock over which the proud gates of hell prevail not.Collection: Father
Often the contempt of vainglory becomes a source of even more vainglory, for it is not being scorned when the contempt is something one is proud of.Collection: Pride
Free curiosity has greater power to stimulate learning than rigorous coercion. Nevertheless, the free ranging flux of curiosity is channeled by discipline under Your Law.Collection: Law
Love God, then do what you will.Collection: God Love
Virginity is not honored simply because it is virginity, but because it is consecrated of God.Collection: Honored
I thought that continence was a matter of our own strength, and I knew that I had not the strength: for in my utter foolishness I did not know the word of Your Scripture that none can be continent unless You give it.Collection: Giving
We are certainly in a common class with the beasts; every action of animal life is concerned with seeking bodily pleasure and avoiding pain.Collection: Pain
Furthermore, what profit was it to me that I, rascally slave of selfish ambitions that I was, read and understood by myself as many books as I could get concerning the so-called liberal arts?...I had turned my back to the light and my face to the things it illuminated, and so no light played upon my own face, or on the eyes that perceived them.Collection: Art
Far be it from us to doubt that all number is known to Him 'Whose understanding is infinite' (Ps. 147:5). The infinity of number, though there be no numbering of infinite numbers, is yet not incomprehensible by Him Whose understanding is infinite. And thus, if everything which is comprehended is defined or made finite by the comprehension of him who knows it, then all infinity is in some ineffable way made finite to God, for it is comprehensible by His knowledge.Collection: Christian
The argument is at an end.Collection: Argument
Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient and ever new! Late have I loved you! And, behold, you were within me, and I out of myself, and there I searched for you.Collection: Life
The diversity of language alienates man from manCollection: Men
What is time? If I am not asked, I know; if I am asked, I don't.Collection: Assessment
Should you ask me what is the first thing in religion, I should reply that the first, second, and third thing therein is humility.Collection: Humility
It is He who gave to this intellectual nature free-will of such a kind, that if he wishes to forsake God his blessedness, misery should forthwith result.Collection: Intellectual
If But for the Mercy of my Lord, that my paradise becomes a woman's hell.Collection: Paradise
Love and do as you will.Collection: Love
Why is it that we remember with difficulty and without difficulty forget? Learn with difficulty and without difficulty remain ignorant?Collection: Ignorant
For, were it not good that evil things should also exist, the omnipotent God would almost certainly not allow evil to be, since beyond doubt it is just as easy for Him not to allow what He does not will, as for Him to do what He will.Collection: Evil
By means of corporal and temporal things we may comprehend the eternal and the spiritual.Collection: Spiritual
The people who remained victorious were less like conquerors than conquered.Collection: People
He who devoutly hears holy Mass will receive a great vigor to enable him to resist mortal sin, and there shall be pardoned to him all venial sins which he may have committed up to that hour.Collection: Vigor
Not all, nor even a majority, are saved. . . They are indeed many, if regarded by themselves, but they are few in comparison with the far larger number of those who shall be punished with the devil.Collection: Numbers
Man's maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother's breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused of false witnesses, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.Collection: Mother
O Lord, grant that I may do Thy will as if it were my will, so that Thou mayest do my will as if it were Thy will.Collection: Prayer
For so it is, O Lord my God, I measure it! But what it is I measure, I do not know.Collection: Assessment
We come to God by love and not by navigation.Collection: Yoga
There is something in humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it.Collection: Humble
God Almighty would in no way permit evil in His works were He not so omnipotent and good that even out of evil He could work good.Collection: Evil
We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.Collection: Vices
The one who is good, is free even being a slave; the one who is bad remains a slave even being a king.Collection: Kings
The rich are like beasts of burden, carrying treasure all day, and at the night of death unladen; they carry to their grave only the bruises and marks of their toil.Collection: Night
The Heavenly City outshines Rome beyond comparison. There, instead of victory, is truth; instead of high rank, holiness; instead of peace, felicity; instead of life, eternity.Collection: Rome
Christ was born of a woman without the man.Collection: Men
As to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth where the sun rises when it sets to us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground credible. Even if some unknown landmass is there, and not just ocean, there was only one pair of original ancestors, and it is inconceivable that such distant regions should have been peopled by Adam's descendants.Collection: Ocean
Can any praise be worthy of the Lord's majesty?Collection: Majesty
What difference, if you are mistaken? For if I am mistaken, I am. For he who is not, assuredly cannot be mistaken; and therefore I am, if I am mistaken. Therefore because I am if I am mistaken, how am I mistaken that I am, when it is sure that I am, if I am mistaken.Collection: Mistake