Saint Augustine quotes:

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.

What I needed most was to love and to be loved, eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me; and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers or jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by burst of anger and quarrels.

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.

If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don't accept, because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend.

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.

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

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

Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again.

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

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.

Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you.

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.

God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.

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

Love is the beauty of the soul.

If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.

We are certainly in a common class with the beasts; every action of animal life is concerned with seeking bodily pleasure and avoiding pain.

Our bodies are shaped to bear children, and our lives are a working out of the processes of creation. All our ambitions and intelligence are beside that great elemental point.

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.

God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.

It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.

He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.

Passion is the evil in adultery. If a man has no opportunity of living with another man's wife, but if it is obvious for some reason that he would like to do so, and would do so if he could, he is no less guilty than if he was caught in the act.

The same thing which is now called Christian religion existed among the ancients. They have begun to call 'Christian' the true religion which existed before.

Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.

God is best known in not knowing him.

He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.

There is no possible source of evil except good.

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.

To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.

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.

O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.

O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.

Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

Angels are spirits, but it is not because they are spirits that they are angels. They become angels when they are sent. For the name angel refers to their office, not their nature. You ask the name of this nature, it is spirit; you ask its office, it is that of an Angel, which is a messenger.

For, as it is written in the book of the Prophets: 'And the angel that spoke in me, said to me...' He does not say, 'Spoke to me' but 'Spoke in me'...

Watch, O Lord, with those who wake, or watch or weep tonight, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend your sick ones, O Lord Jesus Christ; rest your weary ones; bless your dying ones; soothe your suffering ones; pity your afflicted ones; shield your joyous ones; and all for your love's sake. Amen.

Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.

The rich are like beasts of burden, carrying treasure all day, and at the night of death unladen; they carry to their grave only the bruises and marks of their toil.

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.

For what is faith unless it is to believe what you do not see?

Wicked sons do not have the Holy Ghost in the same way as do beloved sons, and yet they do have Baptism. So, too, heretics do not have the Church as Catholics have, even though they have Baptism.

The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction; it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion: Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.

Blessedness consists in the accomplishment of our desires, and in our having only regular desires.

Your persistent longing is your persistent voice. But when love grows cold, the heart grows silent. Burning love is the outcry of the heart! If you are filled with longing all the time, you will keep crying out, and if your love perseveres, your cry will be heard without fail.

God will not suffer man to have a knowledge of things to come for if he had prescience of his prosperity, he would be careless and if understanding of his adversity, he would be despairing and senseless

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.

I would not believe in the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.

Patience is the companion of wisdom.

Recognize in this bread what hung on the cross, and in this chalice what flowed from His side... whatever was in many and varied ways announced beforehand in the sacrifices of the Old Testament pertains to this one sacrifice which is revealed in the New Testament.

Chastity, or cleanness of heart, holds a glorious and distinguished place among the virtues, because she, alone, enables man to see God; hence Truth itself said, 'Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.'

A Christian is: a mind through which Christ thinks, a heart through which Christ loves, a voice through which Christ speaks, and a hand through which Christ helps.

Order your soul; reduce your wants; live in charity; associate in Christian community; obey the laws; trust in Providence.

To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.

Though there are very many nations all over the earth, ...there are no more than two kinds of human society, which we may justly call two cities, ...one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God ....To the City of Man belong the enemies of God, ...so inflamed with hatred against the City of God.

The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. (City of God, Book 19)

Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt.

Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.

Disturbers are to be rebuked, the low spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed, the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil borne with, and all are to be loved!

My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed... And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is.

The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell.

Give her two red roses, each with a note. The first note says For the woman I love and the second, For my best friend.

God is not a deceiver, that He should offer to support us, and then, when we lean upon Him, should slip away from us.

Wonderful is the depth of thy words, whose surface is before us, gently leading on the little ones: and yet a wonderful deepness, O my God, a wonderful deepness. It is awe to look into it; even an awfulness of honour, and a trembling of love....

And he departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find Him. For He departed, and behold, He is here.

It is human to err, but it is devilish to remain willfully in error.

A very weighty argument is this namely, that neither does the light which descends from thence, chiefly upon the world , mix itself with anything, nor admit of dirtiness or pollution, but remains entirely, and in all things that are, free from defilement, admixture, and suffering.

Why is it that man desires to be made sad, beholding doleful and tragical things, which yet himself would by no means suffer?

Drunkenness is a flattering devil, a sweet poison, a pleasant sin, which whosoever hath, hath not himself, which whosoever doth commit, doth not commit sin, but he himself is wholly sin.

The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness, and peril of falling?

Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop.

Nothing so clearly distinguishes a spiritual man as his treatment of an erring brother.

"Give us this day our daily bread," by "this day" we mean "at this time," when we either ask for that sufficiency, signifying the whole of our need under the name of bread, which is the outstanding part of it, or for the sacrament of the faithful, which is necessary at this time for attaining not so much this temporal as that eternal happiness.

For when God said, "Let there be light, and there was light," if we are justified in understanding in this light the creation of the angels, then certainly they were created partakers of the eternal light which is the unchangeable Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and whom we call the only-begotten Son of God.

No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.

By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity.

For whenever unbaptized persons die confessing Christ, this confession is of the same efficacy for the remission of sins as if they were washed in the sacred font of baptism.

I thought that continence was a matter of our own strength, and I knew that I had not the strength: for in my utter foolishness I did not know the word of Your Scripture that none can be continent unless You give it.

God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.

God provides the wind, Man must raise the sail.

When all is said and done, is there any more wonderful sight, any moment when man's reason is nearer to some sort of contact with the nature of the world than the sowing of seeds, the planting of cuttings, the transplanting of shrubs or the grafting of slips?

The world is a great book, of which they that never stir from home read only a page.

Our life is a gymnasium of desire.... When Christians say "God," what do we wish to express? This word is all that we yearn for."

Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.

Nothing whatever pertaining to godliness and real holiness can be accomplished without grace .

In the Mass the blood of Christ flows anew for sinners.

Women should not be enlightened or educated in any way. They should, in fact, be segregated as they are the cause of hideous and involuntary erections in holy men.

He who devoutly hears holy Mass will receive a great vigor to enable him to resist mortal sin, and there shall be pardoned to him all venial sins which he may have committed up to that hour.

Without the Spirit we can neither love God nor keep His commandments.

We made bad use of immortality, and so ended up dying; Christ made good use of mortality, so that we might end up living.

The human race is inquisitive about other people's lives, but negligent to correct their own.

He that is jealous is not in love.

He who labours, prays.

We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.

God bids you not to commit lechery, that is, not to have sex with any woman except your wife. You ask of her that she should not have sex with anyone except you -- yet you are not willing to observe the same restraint in return.

The Law is not in fault, but our evil and wicked nature; even as a heap of lime is still and quiet until water is poured on it, but then it begins to smoke and burn, not from the fault of the water, but from the nature of the lime, which will not endure it.

The same divine authority that forbids the killing of a human being establishes certain exceptions, as when God authorizes killing by a general law or when He gives an explicit commission to an individual for a limited time.

He who does little, but in a state to which God calls him, does more than he who labors much, but in a state which he has thoughtlessly chosen: a cripple limping in the right way is better than a racer out of it.

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.

Every morning you put on your clothes to cover your nakedness and protect your body from inclement weather. Why don't you also clothe your soul with the garment of faith? Remember each morning the truths of your creed, and look at yourself in the mirror of your faith. Otherwise, your soul will soon be naked with the nakedness of oblivion.

Don't go outside; get back to yourself, in the inner man lies the Truth.

The world being unworthy to receive the Son of God directly from the hands of the Father, he gave his Son to Mary for the world to receive him from her.

The angels surround and help the priest when he is celebrating Mass.

Believe that you may understand,

Two works of mercy set a person free: Forgive and you will be forgiven, and give and you will receive.

Trust the past to the mercy of God, the present to His love, and the future to His providence.

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

I want my friend to miss me as long as I miss him.

My love for you, Lord, is not an uncertain feeling, but a matter of concious certainty. With your word you pierced my heart, and I loved you. But heaven and earth and everything in them on all sides tell me to love you.

Bad company is like a nail driven into a post, which, after the first and second blow, may be drawn out with little difficulty; but being once driven up to the head, the pincers cannot take hold to draw it out, but which can only be done by the destruction of the wood.

Two loves have made two different cities: self-love hath made a terrestrial city, which rises in contempt of God; and Divine Love hath made a celestial one, which rises in contempt of self. The former glories in itself - the latter in God.

We come to God by love and not by navigation.

Quid est ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio. What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobodyasksme; but if Iamasked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.

When I come to be united to thee with all my being, then there will be no more pain and toil for me, and my life shall be a real life, being wholly filled by thee.

God in his omnipotence could not give more, in His wisdom He knew not how to give more, in His riches He had not more to give, than the Eucharist.

We count on God's mercy for our past mistakes, on God's love for our present needs, on God's sovereignty for our future.

His knowledge is not like ours, which has three tenses; present, past, and future. God's knowledge has no change or variation.