Quotes from St. Augustine of Hippo

The Head and the body are Christ wholly and entirely. The Head is the only begotten Son of God, the body is His Church; the bridegroom and the bride, two in one flesh. All who dissent from the Scriptures concerning Christ, although they may be found in all places in which the Church is found, are not in the Church; and again all those who agree with the Scriptures concerning the Head, and do not communicate in the unity of the Church, are not in the Church.

We make a ladder of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.

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. That is what love looks like.

An unjust law is no law at all.

Who is this that cries from the ends of the earth? Who is this one man who reaches to the extremities of the universe? He is one, but that one is unity. He is one, not one in a single place, but the cry of this one man comes from the remotest ends of the earth. But how can this one man cry out from the ends of the earth, unless he be one in all?

Go forth on your path, as it exists only through your walking.

It is not by change of place that we can come nearer to Him who is in every place, but by the cultivation of pure desires and virtuous habits.

As the soul is the life of the body, so God is the life of the soul. As therefore the body perishes when the soul leaves it, so the soul dies when God departs from it.

He who created you without you will not justify you without you.

The dove loves when it quarrels; the wolf hates when it flatters.

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.

By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity.

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.

Christ Himself has said: They are no longer two, but they are one flesh (Matt. 19:6). Is it strange then, if they are one flesh, that they should have one tongue and should say the same words, since they are one flesh, Head and body? Let us therefore hear them as one. But let us listen to the Head speaking as Head, and to the body speaking as the body. We do not separate the two realities, but two different dignities; for the Head saves, and the body is saved.

Let us rejoice and give thanks. Not only are we become Christians, but we are become Christ. My brothers, do you understand the grace of God that is given us? Wonder, rejoice, for we are made Christ! If He is the Head, and we the members, then together He and we are the whole man.... This would be foolish pride on our part, were it not a gift of his bounty. But this is what He promised by the mouth of the Apostle: You are the body of Christ, and severally His members

Christ is not valued at all unless He be valued above all.

I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful; but I never read in either of them, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden."

Now, justification in this life is given to us according to these three things: first by the laver of regeneration by which all sins are forgiven; then, by a struggle with the faults from whose guilt we have been absolved; the third, when our prayer is heard, in which we say: Forgive us our debts, because however bravely we fight against our faults, we are men; but the grace of God so aids as we fight in this corruptible body that there is reason for His hearing us as we ask forgiveness.

In our own times, you see, an emperor came to the city of Rome, where theres the temple of an emperor, where theres a fishermans tomb. And so that pious and Christian emperor, wishing to beg for health, for salvation from the Lord, did not proceed to the temple of a proud emperor, but to the tomb of a fisherman, where he could imitate that fisherman in humility, so that he, being thus approached, might then obtain something from the Lord, which a haughty emperor would be quite unable to earn.

You can live, provided you live; that is, you can live for ever, provided you live a good life.

So the Church too, like Mary, enjoys perpetual virginity and uncorrupted fecundity.

You wish to be great, begin from the least. You are thinking to construct some mighty fabric in height; first think of the foundation of humility. And how great soever a mass of building one may wish and design to place above it, the greater the building is to be, the deeper does he dig his foundation.

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.