Saint Augustine Quotes

Saint Augustine Quotes

If you see that you have not yet suffered tribulations, consider it certain that you have not begun to be a true servant of God; for Saint Paul says plainly that all who chose to live piously in Christ, shall suffer persecutions 

I will suggest a means whereby you can praise God all day long, if you wish. Whatever you do, do it well, and you have praised God. 

O Sacrament of Love! O sign of Unity! O bond of Charity! He who would have Life finds here indeed a Life to live in and a Life to live by.

Let us understand that God is a physician, and that suffering is a medicine for salvation, not a punishment for damnation. 

The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness and peril of falling? 

One and the same Word of God extends throughout the Scripture, that it is one and the same Utterance that resounds in the mouths of all the sacred writers, since He who was in the beginning God with God has no need for separate syllables; for he is not subject to time.

This is the business of our life. By labor and prayer to advance in the grace of God, till we come to that height of perfection in which, with clean hearts, we may behold God. 

Jesus Christ will be Lord of all, or he will not be Lord at all.

Question the beauty of the earth, the sea, the air distending and diffusing itself, the sky, question all these realities. All respond: ‘See, we are beautiful.’ These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One who is not subject to change? 

Our life and our death are with our neighbor. 

He prays for us as our priest, prays in us as our Head, and is prayed to by us as our God. Therefore let us acknowledge our voice in him and his in us. 

God has no need of your money, but the poor have. You give it to the poor, and God receives it. - Saint Augustine

Since we cannot, as yet, understand that He was begotten by the Father before the day-star, let us celebrate His birth of the Virgin in the nocturnal hours. Since we do not comprehend how His name existed before the light of the sun, let us recognize His tabernacle placed in the sun. 

Since we do not, as yet, gaze upon the Son inseparably united with His Father, let us remember Him as the ‘bridegroom coming out of his bride chamber.’ Since we are not yet ready for the banquet of our Father, let us grow familiar with the manger of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

What do you possess if you possess not God?

Unhappy is the soul enslaved by the love of anything that is mortal. 

The love of worldly possessions is a sort of bird line, which entangles the soul, and prevents it flying to God. 

At the Lord’s table we do not commemorate martyrs in the same way that we do others who rest in peace so as to pray for them, but rather that they may pray for us that we may follow in their footsteps. 

God in his omnipotence could not give more, in His wisdom He knew not how to give more, in His riches He had not more to give, than the Eucharist. 

Too late have I known Thee, too late have I loved Thee, O beauty so ancient and so new! Too late have I loved thee!

There is an ecclesiastical discipline, as the faithful know, when the names of the martyrs are read aloud in that place at the altar of God, where prayer is not offered for them. Prayer, however, is offered for the dead who are remembered. For it is wrong to pray for a martyr, to whose prayers we ought ourselves be commended. 

Conquer yourself and the world lies at your feet. 

God does not command impossibilities, but by commanding admonishes you do what you can and to pray for what you cannot, and aids you that you may be able. 

God bestows more consideration on the purity of the intention with which our actions are performed than on the actions themselves. 

This very moment I may, if I desire, become the friend of God.

Daily advance, then, in this love, both by praying and by well doing, that through the help of Him who enjoined it on you, and whose gift it is, it may be nourished and increased, until, being perfected, it render you perfect. 

Wouldst thou comprehend the height of God? First comprehend the lowliness of God. Condescend to be humble for thine own sake, seeing that God condescended to be humble for thy sake too, for it was not for his own.

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