Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was a Christian philosopher and theologian. This bishop of the City of Hippo was an important figure in the evolution of pagan attitudes into Christian philosophy.
Born in Tagaste in the Roman province of Numidia in North Africa, now Algeria, to a pagan father and a Christian mother, Augustine converted to Christianity at the age of 31 under the influence of Bishop Ambrose of Milan. Augustine desired a quiet life of philosophizing about theology and writing books. However, when he moved to the port town of Hippo to establish a monastery, he was required to take over the duties of the local bishop. He regretted that he had to spend much time delivering sermons and running a parish instead of writing.
Saint Augustine is known today for his two major works, The Confessions (397–400 CE,) and The City of God (426 CE,) the latter written after the fall of Rome to the Barbarians in 410 CE. In The Confessions, one of the first memoirs of Western literature, Augustine scrutinized his earlier life—the sins he had committed—crying over a fictional character in a poem, stealing pears from a neighbor’s tree, sexual fantasies and exploits, long relationship with a concubine, and so forth. His meditations on his emotional development and the growth of his soul in the context of his own pagan experience are often seen as an argument for Roman Catholicism.
Saint Augustine is also remembered for his philosophies about the notion of original sin—he asserted that all humans are born sinful because they are descended from Adam and Eve, who committed the first sin.
Soon after his death of Augustine, the City of Hippo was destroyed by Vandals. Augustine’s library survived, and all his ideas about resisting pagan influences became church doctrine. His urging that all Christian churches follow the central church in Rome was responsible for preventing the Christian faith from breaking up into separate churches during the medieval period.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Augustine of Hippo
The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Courage, Honesty
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that thou mayest believe, but believe, that thou mayest understand.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Understanding, Faith, Belief
Faith is to believe, on the word of God, what we do not see, and its reward is to see and enjoy what we believe.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Faith
Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Humility
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.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Wonder, Self-Discovery, Reflection, People, Journeys
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.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Desires, Desire
God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Love, God
He who commends the nature of the soul as the supreme good, and condemns the nature of the flesh as evil, at once both carnally desires the soul, and carnally flies the flesh, because he feels thus from human vanity, not from divine truth.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Soul
Temperance is love surrendering itself wholly to Him who is its object; courage is love bearing all things gladly for the sake of Him who is its object; justice is love serving only Him who is its object, and therefore rightly ruling; prudence is love making wise distinction between what hinders and what helps itself.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Personality
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.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Humility
We make a ladder of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Faults
Suspicion is the poison of true friendship.
—Augustine of Hippo
Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Charity
It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Humility
The greatest evil is physical pain.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Pain
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.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Forgiveness
Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Bravery, Courage
No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Duty
Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Love
In as much as love grows in you,
so in you beauty grows.
For love
is the beauty of the soul.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Feelings, Love
If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Change, Growth
I have learnt to love you late, Beauty at once so ancient and so new!
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Beauty
I found thee not, O Lord, without, because I erred in seeking thee without that wert within.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: God, Religion
In doing what we ought we deserve no praise, because it is our duty.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Praise, Duty, Proverbs
Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Grace
Do not believe yourself healthy. Immortality is health; this life is a long sickness.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Immortality
He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Evil, Freedom
Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Vision, Faith, Belief
Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Helping, Service
Do what you can and pray for what you cannot yet do.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Prayer
A good conscience is the palace of Christ; the temple of the Holy Ghost; the paradise of delight; the standing Sabbath of the saints.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Conscience
Patience is the companion of wisdom.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Wisdom, Patience
O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Cheerfulness
Purity of soul cannot be lost without consent.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Truth
Punishment is justice for the unjust.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Punishment
What you are must always displease you, if you would attain to that which you are not.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Life, Motivation
God had one Son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Trials, Adversity
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.
—Augustine of Hippo
When we read a book, our most essential trait – imagination – is given the opportunity to soar.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Imagination
They the hazers or eversores were rightly called Overturners, since they had themselves been first overturned and perverted, tricked by those same devils who were secretly mocking them in the very acts by which they amused themselves in mocking and making fools of others.
—Augustine of Hippo
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