Saint Augustine
Saint Augustine
Augustine of Hippo, also known as Saint Augustine, Saint Austin, Blessed Augustine, and the Doctor of Grace, was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius, located in Numidia. He is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Era. Among his most important works are The City of God and Confessions...
ProfessionSaint
substance wickedness matter
I inquired what wickedness is, and I didn't find a substance, but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance - You, O God - towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life and swelling with external matters.
law wicked delight
The wicked have told me of things that delight them, but not such things as your law has to tell.
baptism church wickedness
Although among heretics and schismatics there is the same Baptism, nevertheless, the remission of sins is not operative among them because of the very rottenness of discord and wickedness of dissension ... Baptism was in them, but it did not profit them outside the Church ... Outside the Church, Baptism works death because of discord.
men doubt wicked
If a parricide is more wicked than anyone who commits homicide-because he kills not merely a man but a near relative-without doubt worse still is he who kills himself, because there is none nearer to a man than himself.
exercise suffering wicked
The wicked exist in this world either to be converted or that through them the good may exercise patience.
men good-man wicked
The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave, and not the slave of a single man, but- what is worse- the slave of as many masters as he has vices.
marvel pass people rivers themselves travel
People travel to marvel at the mountains, seas, rivers and stars; and they pass right by themselves without astonishment.
loved
Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.
abroad admiration admire circuits compass heights men mighty themselves tides
Men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, and pass themselves by.
cauldron ears sang
To Carthage I came, where there sang all around my ears a cauldron of unholy loves.
aspire begin great
You aspire to great things? Begin with little ones.
good
If we live good lives, the times are also good. As we are, such are the times.
Oh Lord, give me chastity, but do not give it yet.
abstinence easier
To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.