5 powerful quotes from St. Augustine’s most famous work, the ‘Confessions’

CNA Staff, Aug 28, 2024 / 04:00 am

The Catholic Church honors St. Augustine of Hippo, an early Church father, doctor of the Church, and foundational theologian, on Aug. 28.

Augustine was brought up as a Christian in his early childhood but drifted from the Church, fathering a child out of wedlock and falling into the heresy of Manichaeism. His mother, Monica, a woman of deep faith who was later canonized herself, never stopped praying for his return to the Church.

Of the more than 5 million words that St. Augustine wrote during his lifetime (354–430 A.D.), his “Confessions” have had a particularly lasting influence as a philosophical, theological, mystical, and literary work. Written in about 400 A.D., “Confessions” details how God worked in Augustine’s life and reads not just as a story but as a prayer.

Here are five powerful quotes from St. Augustine’s “Confessions”:  

1. “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” (Book I)

2. “To Carthage I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a cauldron of unholy loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not … For within me was a famine of that inward food, Thyself, My God.” (Book III)

3. “But what am I to myself without Thee, but a guide to mine own downfall?” (Book IV)

4. “I cast myself down I know not how, under a certain fig-tree, giving full vent to my tears; and the floods of mine eyes gushed out an acceptable sacrifice to thee.” (Book VIII) 

5.  “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.” (Book X)