Inspirational Quotes by Augustine

“Em certos casos, podemos, pois aprovar que haja alguma dor, mas nunca a podemos amar.”

“With what destination in mind are you walking, endlessly, endlessly, on those hard paths of suffering? There's no rest where you're looking for it. Look for what you're looking for--but it's not there where you're looking. You're seeking a happy life in a land of death. It's not there. How can there be a happy life where there isn't even life?”

“186. " I never have any difficulty believing in miracles, since I experienced the miracle of change in my own heart." ~”

“In faith, unity, in doubtful matters, liberty, in all things charity.”

“As Christians, our task is to make daily progress toward God. Our pilgrimage on earth is a school in which God is the only teacher, and it demands good students, not one who play truant. In this school we learn something every day. We learn something from commandments, something from examples, and something from sacraments. These things are remedies for our wounds and materials for study.”

“I know what it is, but when you ask me I don’t.”

“When I then turned toward the scriptures, they appeared to me to be quite unworthy to be compared with the dignity of Tully. For my inflated pride was repelled by their style, nor could the sharpness of my wit penetrate their inner meaning. Truly they were of a sort to aid the growth of little ones, but I scorned to be a little one and, swollen with pride, I looked upon myself as fully grown.”

“I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.”

“C'est ce qui change en amertume les douceurs dont nous jouissions auparavant. C'est ce qui noit notre coeur dans vos larmes, et fait que la perte de la vie de ceux qui meurent devient la mort de ceux qui restent en vie.”

“I will soar, then, beyond this power of my nature also, still rising by degrees toward him who made me. And I enter the fields and spacious halls of memory, where are stored as treasures the countless images that have been brought into them from all manner of things by the senses. There, in the memory, is likewise stored what we cogitate, either by enlarging or reducing our perceptions, or by altering one way or another those things which the senses have made contact with; and everything else that has been entrusted to it and stored up in it, which oblivion has not yet swallowed up and buried.”

“Better to have fewer wants than greater riches to supply increasing wants.”

“If anyone shall set the authority of Holy Writ against clear and manifest reason, he who does this knows not what he has undertaken; for he opposes to the truth not the meaning of the Bible, which is beyond his comprehension, but rather his own interpretation; not what is in the Bible, but what he has found in himself and imagines to be there.”

“Tell me, in the name of your mercies, you, Master, who are my God, what you are to me. Say to my soul, 'I myself am your rescue.' Say it in such a way that I hear it. Here before you are the ears with which my heart hears, Master. Open them and say to my soul, 'I myself am your rescue.' I will run after the sound of your voice and lay hold of you. Do not hide your face from me. Let me die, to keep from dying, and let me see your face.”

“Around 400 A.D., Saint Augustine, a prominent Roman bishop, described a pastor's job: Disturbers are to be rebuked, the low-spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed, litigants pacified, the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil borne with, and all are to be loved.”

“I will soar, then, beyond this power of my nature also, still rising by degrees toward him who made me. And I enter the fields and spacious halls of memory, where are stored as treasures the countless images that have been brought into them from all manner of things by the senses. There, in the memory, is likewise stored what we cogitate, either by enlarging or reducing our perceptions, or by altering one way or another those things which the senses have made contact with; and everything else that has been entrusted to it and stored up in it, which oblivion has not yet swallowed up and buried.”

“Late have I loved you, O beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you!”

“Que amo eu, quando Vos amo? Não amo a formosura corporal, nem a glória temporal, nem a claridade da luz, tão amiga destes meus olhos, nem as doces melodias das canções de todo o gênero, nem o suave cheiro das flores, dos perfumes ou dos aromas, nem o maná ou o mel, nem os membros tão flexíveis aos abraços da carne. Nada disso amo, quando amo a Deus. E contudo, amo uma luz, uma voz, um alimento e um abraço, quando amo a Deus, luz, voz, perfume do homem interior, onde brillha para minha alma uma luz que nenhum espaço contém, onde soa uma voz que o tempo não arrebata, onde exala um perfume que o vento não esparge, onde se saboreia uma comida que a sofreguidão não diminui, onde se sente um contato que a saciedade não desfaz. Eis o que amo quando amo a Deus.”

“Quid est enim tempus? Quis hoc facile breuiterque explicauerit? Quis hoc ad uerbum de illo proferendum uel cogitatione comprehenderit? Quid autem familiarius et notius in loquendo commemoramus quam tempus? Et intellegimus utique cum id loquimur, intellegimus etiam cum alio loquente id audimus. Quid est ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quærat, scio; si quærenti explicare uelim, nescio. Fidenter tamen dico scire me quod, si nihil præteriret, non esset præteritum tempus, et si nihil adueniret, non esset futurum tempus, et si nihil esset, non esset præsens tempus. Duo ergo illa tempora, præteritum et futurum, quomodo sunt, quando et præteritum iam non est et futurum nondum est? Præsens autem si semper esset præsens nec in præteritum transiret, non iam esset tempus, sed æternitas. Si ergo præsens, ut tempus sit, ideo fit, quia in præteritum transit, quomodo et hoc esse dicimus, cui causa, ut sit, illa est, quia non erit, ut scilicet non uere dicamus tempus esse, nisi quia tendit non esse?”

“São quatro as perturbações da alma: o desejo, a alegria, o medo e a tristeza.”

“For, in the same fire, gold gleams and straw smokes; under the same flail the stalk is crushed and the grain threshed; the lees are not mistaken for oil because they issued from the same press. So, too, the tide of trouble will test, purify, and improve the good, but beat, crush, and wash away the wicked. So it is that, under the weight of the same affliction, the wicked deny and blaspheme God, and the good pray to Him and praise Him. The difference is not in what people suffer but in the way they suffer. The same shaking that makes fetid water stink makes perfume issue a more pleasant odor.”