The 12 Best Quotes from St. Augustine's Masterpiece "Confessions"

August 28th (this Friday) is the feast of the great St. Augustine!

In honor of this glorious saint, we would like to share some of our favorite quotes from St. Augustine’s Confessions. This book has made many additional saints. If you haven’t read it tolle lege – take it and read!

Enjoy!

1) “You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

2) “Nothing deserves to be despised more than vice; yet I gave in more and more to vice simply in order not to be despised. If I had not sinned enough to rival other sinners, I used to pretend that I had done things I had not done at all, because I was afraid that innocence would be taken for cowardice and chastity for weakness.”

3) “A statement is not necessarily true because it is wrapped in fine language or false because it is awkwardly expressed.”

4) “I heard your voice calling from on high, saying ‘I am the food of full-grown men. Grow and you shall feed on me. But you shall not change me into your own substance, as you do with the food of your body. Instead you shall be changed into me.”

5) “Come, O Lord, and stir our hearts. Call us back to yourself. Kindle your fire in us and carry us away. Let us scent your fragrance and taste your sweetness. Let us love you and hasten to your side.”

6) “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

7) “My love of you, O Lord, is not some vague feeling: it is positive and certain.”

8) “Happiness is to rejoice in you and for you and because of you. This is true happiness and there is no other. Those who think that there is another kind of happiness look for joy elsewhere, but theirs is not true joy.”

9) “I have known many men who wished to deceive, but none who wished to be deceived.”

10) “Men love the truth when it bathes them in its light: they hate it when it proves them wrong.”

11) “Give me grace to do as you command, and command me to do what you will!”

12) “Circumcise the lips of my mind and my mouth. Purify them of all rash speech and falsehood. Let your Scriptures be my chaste delight. Let me not deceive myself in them nor deceive others about them.”