Augustine of Hippo, also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian, philosopher, and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings influenced the development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period. His many important works include The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, and Confessions.
According to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine “established anew the ancient Faith”. In his youth he was drawn to the major Persian religion, Manichaeism, and later to Neoplatonism. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in 386, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives. Believing the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped formulate the doctrine of original sin and made significant contributions to the development of just war theory. When the Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate, Augustine imagined the Church as a spiritual City of God, distinct from the material Earthly City. His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. The segment of the Church that adhered to the concept of the Trinity as defined by the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople closely identified with Augustine’s On the Trinity. (via Wikipedia)
Following are his few great quotes:
On Love:
Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.
Love is the beauty of the soul.
To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.
The measure of love is to love without measure.
In order to discover the character of people we have only to observe what they love.
What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. And 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.
Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop.
On Life:
We are certainly in a common class with the beasts; every action of animal life is concerned with seeking bodily pleasure and avoiding pain.
On God:
God provides the wind, Man must raise the sail.
God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.
Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.
God is more truly imagined than expressed, and He exists more truly than He is imagined.
God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.
On Books:
Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?
Other Quotes:
Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.
Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.
There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.
The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder.
The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.
Miracles are not contrary to nature but only contrary to what we know about nature.
The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance.
In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me.