Quotes from Saint Augustine

Man has been naturally so created that it is advantageous for him to be submissive, but disastrous for him to follow his own will, and not the will of his creator.

Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.

Custom is second nature.

For what is the self-complacent man but a slave to his own self-praise.

Men are always ready to nose around and find out about other's lives, but they feel lazy to know themselves and correct their own life.

Except he be willing, man cannot believe.

When, therefore, man lives according to man, not according to God, he is like the devil.

A man may lose the good things of this life against his will; but if he loses the eternal blessings, he does so with his own consent.

The sky and the earth and the waters and the things that are in them, the fishes, and the birds and the trees are not evil. All these are good; it is evil men who make this evil world.

Without God, man cannot, and without man, God will not.

Moral character is assessed not by what a man knows but by what he loves

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.

The Kingdom of Heaven, O man, requires no other price than yourself. The value of it is yourself. Give yourself for it and you shall have it.

To my God a heart of flame; To my fellow man a heart of love; To myself a heart of steel.

It is a sin to judge any man by his post

The heart of man is restless until he finds rest in Thee.

Punishment is justice for the unjust.

It seems to me that an unjust law is no law at all.

Nothing so casts down the manly mind from it's height as the fondling of women and those bodily contacts which belong to the married state.

Oh Lord, give me chastity, but do not give it yet.

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.

If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, do not accept, as you may lose a friend.

Humility must accompany all our actions, must be with us everywhere; for as soon as we glory in our good works they are of no further value to our advancement in virtue.

Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.