St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the most significant philosophers and theologians in the history of Christianity, left behind a rich legacy of reflection and insight that continues to motivate and challenge readers today.
His works, including seminal texts like “Confessions” and “The City of God,” dig into into deep questions of faith, morality, and the human condition.
St. Augustine’s quotes sums up his profound insights into love, hope, truth, and the divine, offering advice and reflection for spiritual and philosophical contemplation.
Top St. Augustine Quotes
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine
“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” – St. Augustine
“Patience is the companion of wisdom.” – St. Augustine
“Love is the beauty of the soul.” – St. Augustine
“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” – St. Augustine
“The greatest evil is physical pain.” – St. Augustine
“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
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” – 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.” – St. 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.” – St. Augustine
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St. Augustine Quotes on Faith
“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” – St. Augustine
“Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.” – St. Augustine
“Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.” – St. Augustine
“Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.” – St. Augustine
“God does not expect us to submit our faith to him without reason, but the very limits of our reason make faith a necessity.” – St. Augustine
“A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.” – St. Augustine
“I believe in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe.” – St. Augustine
“It is not the punishment but the cause that makes the martyr.” – St. Augustine
“Faith is believing what you do not see; the reward for this kind of faith is to see what you believe.” – St. Augustine
“The measure of love is to love without measure.” – St. Augustine
St. Augustine Quotes on Love
“Love is the beauty of the soul.” – St. Augustine
“The measure of love is to love without measure.” – St. Augustine
“To love another person is to see the face of God.” – St. Augustine
“He who is filled with love is filled with God himself.” – St. Augustine
“In loving you, I love myself.” – St. Augustine
“Love, and do what you will.” – St. Augustine
“Love God, and He will enable you to love others even when they disappoint you.” – St. Augustine
“A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.” – St. Augustine
“Love transcends all suffering.” – St. Augustine
“To love is nothing other than to desire the best for the other.” – St. Augustine
St. Augustine Quotes on Hope
“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.” – St. Augustine
“Hope is the pillar that holds up the world. Hope is the dream of a waking man.” – St. Augustine
“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.” – St. Augustine
“Do not despair; one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned.” – St. Augustine
“There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.” – St. Augustine
“Patience is the companion of wisdom and the mother of hope.” – St. Augustine
“Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.” – St. Augustine
“It is hope that gives life meaning. And hope is based on the prospect of being able one day to turn the actual world into a possible one that looks better.” – St. Augustine
“Hope diminishes the difficulties of life.” – St. Augustine
“Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.” – St. Augustine
St. Augustine Quotes on Truth
“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.” – St. Augustine
“False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience.” – St. Augustine
“Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.” – St. Augustine
“The soul that can speak with its eyes can also kiss with a gaze.” – St. Augustine
“If you believe only what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you dislike, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.” – St. Augustine
“Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” – St. Augustine
“Wisdom and truth seek from us a sense of great diligence in studying.” – St. Augustine
“The truth stands firm, no matter how much it is suppressed or hidden.” – St. Augustine
“Mistakes are a part of the dues one pays for a full life.” – St. Augustine
“Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.” – St. Augustine
Topic 2: St. Augustine Quotes on Wisdom
“Patience is the companion of wisdom.” – St. Augustine
“The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself.” – St. Augustine
“Four things belong to a judge: to hear courteously, to answer wisely, to consider soberly, and to decide impartially.” – St. Augustine
“Seek not abroad, turn back into thyself, for in the inner man dwells the truth.” – St. Augustine
“The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder.” – St. Augustine
“Wisdom tends more to the cautious handling of affairs than genius.” – St. Augustine
“A man’s confession of what he is must precede God’s declaration of what he shall be.” – St. Augustine
“To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of eternal things; to knowledge, the rational apprehension of temporal things.” – St. Augustine
“Wisdom is the knowledge of divine things and of human things as they are.” – St. Augustine
“Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.” – St. Augustine
St. Augustine Quotes on Grace
“To be forgiven, we must first forgive others, no matter how much they have hurt us.” – St. Augustine
“God gives where he finds empty hands.” – St. Augustine
“I asked God for strength, that I might achieve; I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.” – St. Augustine
“God provides the wind, but man must raise the sails.” – St. Augustine
“Our hearts were made for You, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in You.” – 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.” – St. Augustine
“God does not command impossibilities, but by commanding admonishes you to do what you can and to pray for what you cannot, and aids you that you may be able.” – St. Augustine
“The grace of Christ does not find saints and make them sinners, but finds sinners and makes them saints.” – St. Augustine
“The rewards of this life are the virtues of grace.” – St. Augustine
“Grace is given not because we have done good works, but in order that we may be able to do them.” – St. Augustine
St. Augustine Quotes on Time
“What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it to one who asks, I do not know.” – St. Augustine
“Time is the measure of business as money is of wares; and business is itself a real part of life.” – St. Augustine
“Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them.” – St. Augustine
“There is no present in the fleeting moment of time; we look forward with desire, and backward with longing, but the present is the invisible line that separates them.” – St. Augustine
“The mind commands the body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance.” – St. Augustine
“The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom: pain makes us consider the present, and boredom the future.” – St. Augustine
“It is in vain that we compute our felicities by the advantage that others do not possess.” – St. Augustine
“The present is made of past things, and the future is what we dream about.” – St. Augustine
“To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.” – St. Augustine
“Thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” – St. Augustine
St. Augustine Quotes on Forgiveness
“To be forgiven, we must first forgive others, no matter how much they have hurt us.” – St. Augustine
“Forgive and give as if it were your last opportunity. Love like there’s no tomorrow, and if tomorrow comes, love again.” – St. Augustine
“In doing what we ought we deserve no praise, because it is our duty.” – St. Augustine
“The condition of anger is an infirmity of the soul, a kind of moral sickness that reveals itself when we are crossed or contradicted.” – St. Augustine
“The placid man is not the man who does not feel anger, but the man who controls the forces of anger.” – St. Augustine
“A man who is angry, even if he were to raise the dead, is not acceptable to God.” – St. Augustine
“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” – St. Augustine
“There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.” – St. Augustine
“Do not judge, so that you will not be judged. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” – St. Augustine
“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.” – St. Augustine
St. Augustine Quotes on Evil
“The only evil is to depart from God.” – St. Augustine
“Evil is nothing but the removal of good until no good remains.” – St. Augustine
“Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name ‘evil.'” – St. Augustine
“All evil is either sin or the punishment for sin.” – St. Augustine
“Evil is simply the act of turning away from what we were created to be.” – St. Augustine
“The nature of evil lies in the corrupt preferences of the will, directed towards what is improper to it and turning away from what it is meant to embrace.” – St. Augustine
“No one does evil for evil’s sake, but from the mistaken pursuit of some perceived good.” – St. Augustine
“He who does an evil deed is still more miserable than he who suffers it.” – St. Augustine
“Try not to respond to evil with evil. Overcome evil with good.” – St. Augustine
“Evil men, though rich or powerful, are slaves; if good men endure, they are free.” – St. Augustine
St. Augustine Quotes on Freewill
“For what is freewill if it is not the power to choose our own way?” – St. Augustine
“The will is free, strong by reason, but stronger by love.” – St. Augustine
“God, who created you without you, will not save you without you.” – St. Augustine
“Freewill is given that we may love what is beautiful, not forced.” – St. Augustine
“You are fully responsible for your good and evil will. God leads the willing to good by just laws, and the unwilling to evil by their own deserts.” – St. Augustine
“The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.” – St. Augustine
“It is not unwilling obedience that the Lord requires, but a cheerful giver, a willing spirit.” – St. Augustine
“He who has made you without your consent does not justify you without your will.” – St. Augustine
“Men are not saved against their will, but they are made willing by the operation of His will.” – St. Augustine
“Our deeds will travel with us from this earth, and before the tribunal of the conscience, sooner or later, they will arrive.” – St. Augustine
St. Augustine Quotes on Humanity
“Men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the vast compass of the ocean, the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.” – St. Augustine
“What does love look like? It has the hands to help others, the feet to hasten to the poor and needy, the eyes to see misery and want, and the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men.” – St. Augustine
“The measure of love is to love without measure.” – St. Augustine
“Inasmuch as love grows in you, in so much beauty grows; for love is the beauty of the soul.” – St. Augustine
“This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections.” – St. Augustine
“The human mind is so vast and full of passion that it cannot be satisfied by any finite thing.” – St. Augustine
“There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.” – St. Augustine
“If you could see your own sins and not those of your neighbor, you would not condemn them.” – St. Augustine
“A man’s heart tells him better than seven watchmen sitting high in a tower.” – St. Augustine
“By loving humankind and fearing God, we become members of His family.” – St. Augustine
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Commentary
St. Augustine’s quotes are not just words; they are a path to exploring the depths of Christian doctrine and the intricacies of human nature.
His ageless wisdom addresses the endless struggles and aspirations of humanity, providing comfort and direction.
Whether you are seeking spiritual consolation, moral guidance, or philosophical insights, St. Augustine’s fluent expressions continue to resonate, demonstrating his lasting relevance in today’s world.