Quotes from Saint Augustine

The greatest kindness one can render to any man is leading him to truth.

Truth is not private property.

Because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false.

Mary heard God's word and kept it, and so she is blessed. She kept God's truth in her mind, a nobler thing than carrying his body in her womb.

It's not in the book or in the writer that readers discern the truth of what they read; they see it in themselves, if the light of truth has penetrated their minds.

Every good and true Christian should understand that wherever he may find the truth it is his Lord's.

Nothing conquers except truth and the victory of truth is love.

Don't go outside; get back to yourself, in the inner man lies the Truth.

If there is something more excellent than the truth, then that is God; if not, then truth itself is God.

And I entered and beheld with the eye of my soul... the Light Unchangeable... He that knows the Truth, knows what that Light is; and he that knows It, knows Eternity.

One never errs more safely than when one errs by too much loving the truth.

We judge all things according to the divine truth.

I will plant my feet on that step where my parents put me as a child, until self-evident truth comes to light.

To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.

If a shameless woman expects to be defiled and then dies of her fierce love because you do not consent, will chastity also be homicide?

Love God, then do what you will.

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.

We must understand then, that even though God doesn't always give us what we want, He always gives us what we need for our salvation.

My weight is my love.

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.

How high a price we pay for the burden of habit! I am fitted for life here where I do not want to be, I want to live there but am unfit for it, and on both counts I am miserable.

Your best servant is the person who does not attend so much to hearing what he himself wants as to willing what he has heard from you.

The most venerable, clearly understood, enlightened, and reliable constant in the world is not only that we want to be happy, but that we want only to be so. Our very nature requires it of us.

Love and do what you want. If you stop talking, you will stop talking with love; if you shout, you will shout with love; if you correct, you will correct with love.