Santo Agostinho

You command continence; give what you command, and command what you will.

Too late came I to love thee, O thou Beauty both so ancient and so fresh, yea too late came I to love thee. And behold, thou wert within me, and I out of myself, where I made search for thee.

When he was reading, he drew his eyes along over the leaves, and his heart searched into the sense, but his voice and tongue were silent.

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

Give me chastity and continency—but not yet!

Audi partem alteram.

Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.

He who does not have the church as his mother does not have God as his Father.

There is no salvation outside the church.

Dilige et quod vis fac.

Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum.

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

Let no one flatter himself of himself he is Satan. Let man take sin, which is his own, and leave righteousness with God.

Tolle lege, tolle lege.

You aspire to great things? Begin with little ones. You desire to erect a very high building? Think first of the foundation of humility.

Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.

The good Christian should beware the mathematician and all those who make empty prophecies.

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

Where your pleasure is, there is your treasure where your treasure, there your heart where your heart, there your happiness.

“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.”

Unless you believe, you will not understand.

The argument is at an end.

My love for you, Lord, is not an uncertain feeling, but a matter of conscious 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.

The world is a great book; he who never stirs from home reads only a page.

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

When large numbers of people share their joy in common, the happiness of each is greater because each adds fuel to the other’s flame.

Conscience and reputation are two things. Conscience is due to yourself, reputation to your neighbor.

Patience is the companion of wisdom.

You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

You (God) have not only commanded continence, that is, from what things we are to restrain our love, but also justice, that is, on what we are to bestow our love.

A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.

I was in love with loving.