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Quotes from Confessions — Augustine of Hippo

354–430

← All quotes by Augustine of Hippo

12 quotes

God, grant us men to see in a small thing principles which are common things both small and great.

Confessions (397)

The weakness of little children's limbs is innocent, not their souls.

Confessions (397)

As a youth I prayed, "Give me chastity and continence, but not right now."

Confessions (397)

Give what you command, and command what you will. You impose continency on us.

Confessions (397)

And these were the dishes wherein to me, hunger-starven for thee, they served up the sun and the moon.

Confessions (397)

I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love...I sought what I might love, in love with loving.

Confessions (397)

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.

Confessions (397)

I have become a question to myself.

Confessions (397)

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)

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.

Confessions (397)

I read there [in "certain books of the Platonists"] that God the Word was born "not of flesh nor of blood, nor of the will of man, nor the will of the flesh, but of God." But, that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" — I found this nowhere there.

Confessions (397)

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient and ever new! Late have I loved you! And, behold, you were within me, and I out of myself, and there I searched for you.

Confessions (397)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Augustine of Hippo (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.