Home › Authors › Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo Quotes
354–430
St. Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a Christian theologian, rhetor, North African bishop, Doctor of the Catholic Church, saint, and a philosopher influenced in his early years by Manichaeism and the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus.
Also known as: Augustine, City of God, Saint Augustine, Saint Augustine of Hippo, St Augustine, St. Augustine
Random Augustine of Hippo quote
189 quotes
We must be on our guard against giving interpretations which are hazardous or opposed to science, and so exposing the word of God to the ridicule of unbelievers.
If you comprehend, it is not God.
For the spiritual power of a sacrament is like light in this way: it is both received pure by those to be enlightened, and if it passes through the impure it is not defiled.
Give with a heart glowing with generous sentiments; give as the fountain gives out its waters from its own swelling depths; give as the air gives its vital breezes, unrestrained and free; give as the sun gives out its light, from the infinite abysses of its own nature.
Consequently, if the republic is the weal of the people, and there is no people if it be not associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and if there is no right where there is no justice, then most certainly it follows that there is no republic where there is no justice.
So the Church too, like Mary, enjoys perpetual virginity and uncorrupted fecundity.
On Ps 60:3: “To Thee have I cried from the ends of the earth.”
Nowhere in the Gospel do we read that the Lord said: "I am sending you a Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun and moon." For He wanted to make Christians, not mathematicians.
That God, though, worships human beings, it's enough to frighten hearers out of their wits, because people are not in the habit of saying that God worships human beings — in that special sense —but that human beings worship God.
So if you can manage it, you shouldn’t touch your partner, except for the sake of having children.
But, say they, the wise man will wage Just Wars. As if he would not all the rather lament the necessity of just wars, if he remembers that he is a man; for if they were not just he would not wage them, and would therefore be delivered from all wars.
For He is called omnipotent on account of His doing what He wills, not on account of His suffering what He wills not; for if that should befall Him, He would by no means be omnipotent. Wherefore, He cannot do some things for the very reason that He is omnipotent.
But just a minute, Mr. Poor Man; consider whether you can, in fact, enter. What if you’re poor, and also happen to be greedy? What if you’re sunk in destitution, and at the same time on fire with avarice?
So give to the poor; I’m begging you, I’m warning you, I’m commanding you, I’m ordering you.
It is as if he should feel that there is an enemy who could be more destructive to himself than that hatred which excites him against his fellow man;
Poverty is the load of some, and wealth is the load of others, perhaps the greater load of the two. It may weigh them to perdition. Bear the load of thy neighbor's poverty, and let him bear with thee the load of thy wealth. Thou lightenest thy load by lightening his.
The Catholic faith, … I now realized could be maintained without presumption. This was especially true after I had heard one or two parts of the Old Testament explained allegorically—whereas before this, when I had interpreted them literally, they had “killed” me spiritually.
Confessions (397)
Anger is a weed; hate is the tree.
Whoever is separated from this Catholic Church, by this single sin of being separated from the unity of Christ, no matter how estimable a life he may imagine he is living, shall not have life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.
This much thou hast taught me: that I should learn to take food as medicine. But during that time when I pass from the pinch of emptiness to the contentment of fullness, it is in that very moment that the snare of appetite lies baited for me.
Topics Augustine of Hippo is quoted on
Works