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 world is a great book, of which they who never stir from home read only a page.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Travel
No one hates his body.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Body
To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of things eternal; to knowledge, the rational apprehension of things temporal.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Wisdom, Knowledge
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.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Positive Attitudes, Health, Present, Age, Self-reliance, Optimism
The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Merit, Humility
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.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Feelings, Love
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
Nothing whatever pertaining to godliness and real holiness can be accomplished without grace
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Accomplishment
In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Government, Absence
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
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.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Beauty
Don’t you believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Spirituality, Spirit
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: Journeys, Self-Discovery, Reflection, People, Wonder
The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only one page.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Travel
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
Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Faith
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
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
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
A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Truth
No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Duty
Blessedness consists in the accomplishment of our desires, and in our having only regular desires.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Happiness
There is something in humility which strangely exalts the heart.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Humility
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
Humble wedlock is far better than proud virginity.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Marriage
God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.
—Augustine of Hippo
Topics: Love, God
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
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: Friendship, Friends, Feelings
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