Quotes from Saint Augustine

You aspire to great things? Begin with the little ones.

God will cleanse your sins if you yourself are dissatisfied with yourself and will keep on changing until you are perfect.

We cannot pass our guardian angel's bounds, resigned or sullen, he will hear our sighs.

Fortitude is the disposition of soul which enables us to despise all inconveniences and the loss of things not in our power.

Do what you can and pray for what you cannot yet do.

God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.

The desire is thy prayers; and if thy desire is without ceasing, thy prayer will also be without ceasing. The continuance of your longing is the continuance of your prayer.

He that loveth little prayeth little, he that loveth much prayeth much.

O Lord, grant that I may do Thy will as if it were my will, so that Thou mayest do my will as if it were Thy will.

What can be more excellent than prayer; what is more profitable to our life; what sweeter to our souls; what more sublime, in the course of our whole life, than the practice of prayer!

Whole prayer is nothing but love.

Within the Church, sins are forgiven in three ways: by baptism, by prayer, and by the greater humility of penance; yet God does not forgive sins except to the baptized.

He that is jealous is not in love.

To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of eternal things; to knowledge, the rational knowledge of temporal things.

If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing.

A free curiosity is more effective in learning than a rigid discipline.

Free curiosity is of more value in learning than harsh discipline.

Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.

To seek the highest good is to live well.

In doing what we ought we deserve no praise, because it is our duty.

He who labours, prays.

If I am given a formula, and I am ignorant of its meaning, it cannot teach me anything, but if I already know it what does the formula teach me?

Though defensive violence will always be 'a sad necessity' in the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men.

Suppress prostitution, and capricious lusts will overthrow society.