Augustine Quotes

• The conscious mind allows itself to be trained like a parrot, but the unconscious does not — which is why St. Augustine thanked God for not making him responsible for his dreams.

  Carl Jung

  Dream, Mind, Doe

  "Psychology and Alchemy". Book by Carl Jung. Paragraph 51, p. 46, 1952.

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• As Augustine say clearly, God being God offends human pride. If God is running the universe and has first claim on our lives, guess who isn't running the universe and does not get to have things as they please.

  Dallas Willard

  Running, Pride, Doe

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• We 'have all we want' is a terrible saying when 'all' does not include God. We find God an interruption. As St. Augustine says somewhere, 'God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full - there's nowhere for Him to put it.'

  C. S. Lewis

  Hands, Giving, Doe

  C.S. Lewis (1996). “Joyful Christian”, p.210, Simon and Schuster

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• St. Augustine teaches us that there is in each man a Serpent, an Eve, and an Adam. Our senses and natural propensities are the Serpent; the excitable desire is the Eve; and reason is the Adam. Our nature tempts us perpetually; criminal desire is often excited; but sin is not completed till reason consents.

  Blaise Pascal

  Men, Temptation, Desire

  Blaise Pascal (1849). “Thoughts of Blaise Pascal”, p.371

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• St. Augustine and St. Thomas define mortal sin to be a turning away from God: that is, the turning of one's back upon God, leaving the Creator for the sake of the creature. What punishment would that subject deserve who, while his king was giving him a command, contemptuously turned his back upon him to go and transgress his orders? This is what the sinner does; and this is punished in hell with the pain of loss, that is, the loss of God, a punishment richly deserved by him who in this life turns his back upon his sovereign good.

  Alphonsus Liguori

  Kings, Pain, Loss

  Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Aeterna Press (2016). “The Way of Salvation and of Perfection”, p.44, Aeterna Press

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• Augustine says that we may, out of our dead sins, make stepping stones to rise to the heights of perfection. What did he mean by that? He meant that the memory of our falls may breed in us such a humility, such a distrust of self, such a constant clinging to Christ as we could never have had without the experience of our own weakness.

  James Stalker

  Memories, Fall, Mean

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• Holy Christendom has, in my judgment, no better teacher after the apostles than St. Augustine.

  Martin Luther

  Teacher, Judgment, Holy

  Martin Luther, Helmut T. Lehmann (1986). “Luther's Works: Word and sacrament”

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• Though he avoided outright endorsement of the view, fifth-century Church Father Saint Augustine was clearly familiar with the theory of the spherical earth: "They [those who believe that "there are men on the other side of the earth"] fail to observe that even if the world is held to be global or rounded in shape, or if some process of reasoning should prove this to be the case, it would still not necessarily follow that the land on the opposite side is not covered by masses of water."

  Saint Augustine

  Father, Believe, Men

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• Is it not lack of faith that leads men to fear the scrutiny of reason? If the destination is doubtful, then the path must be fraught with fear. A robust faith need not fear, for if God exists, then reason cannot help but lead us to Him. 'Cogito, ergo Deus est,' argues St. Augustine, 'I think, therefore God is.'

  Donna Woolfolk Cross

  Men, Thinking, Needs

  "Pope Joan". Book by Donna Woolfolk Cross, www.e-reading.club. 1996.

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• Augustine started from God's grace and got it right, Pelagius started from human effort and got it wrong. Augustine passionately pursued God; Pelagius methodically worked to please God.

  Philip Yancey

  Effort, Grace, Please

  Philip Yancey (1997). “What's So Amazing about Grace?”, p.71, Harper Collins

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• Again, I hear almost everyday from atheists who write off religion as primitive, premodern nonsense. I summon Aquinas, Augustine, Paul [of Tarsus], Teresa of Avila, Joseph Ratzinger, and Edith Stein-in all their intellectual rigor-as allies in the the struggle against this dismissive atheism.

  Robert Barron

  Atheist, Struggle, Writing

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• The big, blazing truth about man is that he has a heaven-sized hole in his heart, and nothing else can fill it. We pass our lives trying to fill the Grand Canyon with marbles. As Augustine said: Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.

  Peter Kreeft

  Faith, Inspiration, Heart

  Peter Kreeft (1988). “Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics”, p.159, Ignatius Press

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• Saint Augustine cries, Lord I cannot love you, but come in and love yourself in me. According to Saint Paul, we must put off our own natural form and put on the form of God, and Saint Augustine tells us to discard our own mode of nature; then the divine nature will flow in and be revealed. Saint Augustine says, Those who seek and find, find not. He who seeks and finds not, he alone finds. Saint Paul says, What I was, was not I, it was God in me.

  Meister Eckhart

  Love You, And Love, Saint

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• From Augustine down, theologians have tried to compel people to accept their special interpretation of the Scripture, and the tortures of the inquisition, the rack, the thumb-screw, the stake, the persecutions of witchcraft, the whipping of naked women through the streets of Boston, banishment, trials of heresy, the halter about Garrison's neck, Lovejoy's death, the branding of Captain Walker, shouts of infidel and atheist, have all been for this purpose.

  Matilda Joslyn Gage

  Atheist, Boston, People

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage (1979). “History of Woman Suffrage”, Ayer Company Pub

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• Things take the time they take. don't worry. How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine?

  Mary Oliver

  Worry

  FaceBook post by Mary Oliver from Oct 31, 2016

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• I am convinced with Plato , with St. Paul, with St. Augustine, with Calvin , and with Leibnitz, that this universe, and every smallest portion of it, exactly fulfils the purpose for which Almighty God designed it.

  James Anthony Froude

  Plato, Purpose, Almighty

  James Anthony Froude (1849). “The Nemesis of Faith”, p.8

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• The measure of love is to love without measure. - attributed to Saint Augustine

  Cassandra Clare

  Love Is, Saint

  Cassandra Clare (2014). “Clockwork Princess”, p.514, Simon and Schuster

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• But the blessing Christ promised, the blessing of great reward, is a reward of grace. The blessing is promised even though it is not earned. Augustine said it this way: Our rewards in heaven are a result of God's crowning His own gifts.

  R. C. Sproul

  Blessing, Heaven, Grace

  R. C. Sproul (2003). “In the Presence of God: Devotional Readings on the Attributes of God”, p.48, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I must preach to-day, or else be false to my conscience and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox's gospel is my gospel. That which thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Scotland, Rough Edges, Doctrine

  Charles Spurgeon (2009). “Essential Works of Charles Spurgeon”, p.56, Barbour Publishing

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• Now the Father draws us from the evil of sin to the goodness of His grace with the might of His measureless power, and He needs all the resources of His strength in order to convert sinners, more than when He was about to make heaven and earth, which He made with His own power without help from any creature. But when He is about to convert a sinner, He always needs the sinner's help. "He converts thee not without thy help," as St. Augustine says.

  Meister Eckhart

  Father, Order, Evil

  "Meister Eckhart's Sermons". Book by Meister Eckhart, 1909.

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• Is it experimental to have been influenced by the Bible? By Saint Augustine?

  Marguerite Young

  Saint, Has Beens

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• I often think . . . that the bookstores that will save civilization are not online, nor on campuses, nor named Borders, Barnes & Noble, Dalton, or Crown. They are the used bookstores, in which, for a couple of hundred dollars, one can still find, with some diligence, the essential books of our culture, from the Bible and Shakespeare to Plato, Augustine, and Pascal.

  James V. Schall

  Couple, Plato, Book

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• St. Augustine wrote that basically it is not possible to understand what was being described in Genesis. It was not intended as a science textbook. It was intended as a description of who God was, who we are and what our relationship is supposed to be with God.

  Richard Dawkins

  Textbooks, Who We Are, Our Relationship

  Source: inters.org

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• Augustine does not disagree with this when he teaches that it is a faculty of the reason and the will to choose good with the assistance of grace; evil, when grace is absent.

  John Calvin

  Evil, Grace, Doe

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• For many years now, I have been an outspoken supporter of civil and human rights for gay and lesbian people. Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions.

  Coretta Scott King

  Fighting, Gay, Men

  Chicago Tribune, April 01, 1998.

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