Saint Augustine
Saint Augustine
Augustine of Hippo, also known as Saint Augustine, Saint Austin, Blessed Augustine, and the Doctor of Grace, was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius, located in Numidia. He is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings in the Patristic Era. Among his most important works are The City of God and Confessions...
ProfessionSaint
substance wickedness matter
I inquired what wickedness is, and I didn't find a substance, but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance - You, O God - towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life and swelling with external matters.
fall mean self
I became evil for no reason. I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself. My depraved soul leaped down from your firmament to ruin. I was seeking not to gain anything by shameful means, but shame for its own sake.
begging-you giving warning
So give to the poor; I'm begging you, I'm warning you, I'm commanding you, I'm ordering you.
men sins-not sight
Hear, O God. Alas, for man's sin! So saith man, and Thou pitiest him; for Thou madest him, but sin is in him Thou madest not. Who remindeth me of the sins of my infancy? for in Thy sight none is pure from sin, not even the infant whose life is but a day upon the earth.
love-is fierce shameless
If a shameless woman expects to be defiled and then dies of her fierce love because you do not consent, will chastity also be homicide?
men neighbor bounds
The love of our neighbor hath its bounds in each man's love of himself.
race people inquisitive
The human race is inquisitive about other people's lives, but negligent to correct their own.
life-is-good positivity be-good
Let our lives be good, and the times are good. We make our times; such as we are, such are the times.
faith understanding wages
Understanding is the wages of faith.
mean fate men
If by fate anyone means the will or power of God, let him keep his meaning but mend his language; for fate commonly means a necessary process which will have its way apart from the will of God and men.
sweet devil poison
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.
time trying baffled
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.
thinking long would-be
So you see how endlessly futile and fruitless it would be if we wanted to refute their objections every time they obstinately resolved not to think through what they say but merely to speak, just so long as they contradict our arguments in any way they can.
christian jesus revenge
Do you who are a Christian desire to be revenged and vindicated, and the death of Jesus Christ has not yet been revenged, nor His innocence vindicated?