Saint Augustine Faith Quotations

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.

God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.

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.

Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.

Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.

He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.

Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.

God is more truly imagined than expressed, and He exists more truly than He is imagined.

Love, and He will draw near; love, and He will dwell within you.

Do not wander far and wide but return into yourself. Deep within man there dwells the truth.

The entire life of a good Christian is in fact an exercise of holy desire. You do not yet see what you long for, but the very act of desiring prepares you, so that when he comes you may see and be utterly satisfied.

Do you desire security? Here you have it. The Lord says to you, "I will never abandon you, I will always be with you." If a good man made you such a promise, you would trust him. God makes it, and do you doubt? Do you seek a support more sure than the word of God, which is infallible? Surely, He has made the promise, He has written it, He has pledged His word for it, it is most certain.

He who has God has everything; he who has everything but God has nothing.

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.

To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.

Understanding is the wages of faith.

Every infinity... is made finite to God.

O Sacrament of Love! O sign of Unity! O bond of Charity! He who would have Life finds here indeed a Life to live in and a Life to live by.

When I am completely united to You, there will be no more sorrow or trials; entirely full of You, my life will be complete.

Singing is a lover's thing.

You called and shouted and burst my deafness. You flashed, shone, and scattered my blindness. You breathed odors, and I drew in breath and panted for You. I tasted, and I hunger and thirst. You touched me, and I burned for Your peace.

We take for granted the slow miracle whereby water in the irrigation of a vineyard becomes wine. It is only when Christ turns water into wine, in a quick motion, as it were, that we stand amazed.

For what is faith unless it is to believe what you do not see?

Our life is a gymnasium of desire.... When Christians say "God," what do we wish to express? This word is all that we yearn for."

There can only be two basic loves... the love of God unto the forgetfulness of self, or the love of self unto the forgetfulness and denial of God.

Doubt is but another element of faith.

If you are silent, be silent out of love. If you speak, speak out of love.