Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Augustine of Hippo (Roman-African Christian Philosopher)

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

Do not believe yourself healthy. Immortality is health; this life is a long sickness.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Immortality

Punishment is justice for the unjust.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Punishment

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.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Soul

Blessedness consists in the accomplishment of our desires, and in our having only regular desires.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Happiness

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: Love, Feelings

When we read a book, our most essential trait – imagination – is given the opportunity to soar.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Imagination

The people who remained victorious were less like conquerors than conquered.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Victory

Order your soul; reduce your wants; live in charity; associate in Christian community; obey the laws; trust in Providence.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Life and Living

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.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Feelings, Friends, Friendship

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Charity

Patience is the companion of wisdom.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Patience, Wisdom

It is human to err, but it is devilish to remain willfully in error.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Failures, Mistakes

I asked the whole frame of the world about my God; and he answered, “I am not He, but He made me.”
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Creation

He that is not jealous is not in love.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Jealousy

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Habits, Habit

It is the function of perfection to make one know one’s imperfection.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Perfection

Should you ask me, What is the first thing in religion?. I should reply, The first, second, and third thing therein—nay, all—is humility.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Humility

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Courage, Honesty

Do you wish to rise?. Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds?. Lay first the foundation of humility.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Leaders, Humility, Leadership

Poetry is devil’s wine.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Wine

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.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Drunkenness

God had one Son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Adversity, Trials

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.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Time Management, Time

The argument is at an end.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Arguments

We make a ladder of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Faults

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, People, Journeys, Self-Discovery, Reflection

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

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.
Augustine of Hippo

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.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Experience

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.
Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Belief

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