I held my heart back from positively accepting anything, since I was afraid of another fall, and in this condition of suspense I was being all the more killed.
— Confessions
Augustine of Hippo, also known as Saint Augustine, was a Christian theologian and philosopher from Thagaste in Numidia and the Bishop of Hippo Regius. He is regarded as one of the most influential philosophers in the history of the Western world and one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church.
In his youth he was drawn to the Manichaean faith and later to Neoplatonism. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in 386 by Saint Ambrose, he developed his own approach to philosophy and theology. He is called the Doctor of Grace for the influence of his views on grace, salvation and original sin. His Confessions and The City of God are his most quoted works in our library.
In his youth he was drawn to the Manichaean faith and later to Neoplatonism. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in 386 by Saint Ambrose, he developed his own approach to philosophy and theology. He is called the Doctor of Grace for the influence of his views on grace, salvation and original sin. His Confessions and The City of God are his most quoted works in our library.
Most quoted works
- Confessions 31
- City of God 15
- The City of God 9
Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.
— Confessions
No one should be ashamed to admit that they do not know what they do not know, in case while feigning knowledge, they come to deserve to never know.
— Letters of St. Augustine
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.
— Confessions
it is a higher glory... to stay war itself with a word, than to slay men with the sword, and to procure or maintain peace by peace, not by war.
— The Political Writings of St. Augustine
Can human folly harbour a more arrogant or ungrateful thought than the notion that whereas God makes man beautiful in body, man makes himself pure in heart?
— Select Letters
There are wolves within, and there are sheep without.
— City of God
Oh! that I might repose on Thee! Oh! that Thou wouldest enter into my heart, inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and embrace Thee, my sole good?
— Confessions
Such is the strength of the burden of habit. Here I have the power to be but do not wish it. There I wish to be but lacks the power. On both grounds, I'm in misery.
— Confessions
You never depart from us, but yet, only with difficulties do we return to You.
— Confessions
You are not the mind itself. For You are the Lord God of the mind. All these things are liable to change, but You remain immutable above all things.
— Confessions
There could be nothing more fortunate for human affairs than that by the mercy of God they who are endowed with true piety of life if they have the skill for ruling people should also have the power.
— City of God
Humility raises us not by human arrogance but by divine grace.
— City of God