Love the sinner and hate the sin.

The violence which assails good men to test them, to cleanse and purify them, effects in the wicked their condemnation, ruin, and annihilation.

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.

Virtue and vice are not the same, even if they undergo the same torment.

In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it.”

What are kingdoms but large-scale terrorist gangs? … There was truth as well as neatness in what the captured pirate said to Alexander the Great when Alexander asked him what business he had to infest the sea, and he defiantly replied: “The same as you have to infest the world. Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a terrorist. You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor.”

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 the way they are.

An unjust law is no law at all.

He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.

The fellow who eggs you on to avenge yourself will rob you of what you were going to say – as we forgive our debtors. When you have forfeited that, all your sins will be held against you; absolutely nothing is forgiven.

My mother spoke of Christ to father, by her feminine and childlike virtues, and, after having borne his violence without a murmur or complaint, gained him at, the close of his life to Christ.

There is another form of temptation, more complex in its peril. … It originates in an appetite for knowledge. … From this malady of curiosity are all those strange sights exhibited in the theatre. Hence do we proceed to search out the secret powers of nature (which is beside our end), which to know profits not, and wherein men desire nothing but to know.

The spiritual virtue of a sacrament is like light, — although it passes among the impure, it is not polluted.

It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It 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.

I became evil for no reason. I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself. My depraved soul leaped down from your firmament to ruin. I was seeking not to gain anything by shameful means, but shame for its own sake.

Give what you command, and command what you will. You impose continency on us.

The world is a great book, of which they that never stir from home read only a page.

Already I had learned from thee that because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false. Nor, again, is it necessarily true because rudely uttered, nor untrue because the language is brilliant. Wisdom and folly both are like meats that are wholesome and unwholesome, and courtly or simple words are like town-made or rustic vessels — both kinds of food may be served in either kind of dish.

When I am here, I do not fast on Saturday; when at Rome, I do fast on Saturday.

Related posts:

  1. Can one love truth without loving man? Can one love man without loving truth? Love comes first. To love truth, you must know truth. To know truth is to deny truth. What is known is not truth. What is known is already encased in time and ceases to be truth. Truth is an eternal...
  2. St Augustine Theologian (354-430 B.C.) During his younger years Augustine was a Manichaean and both a student and teacher at Carthage and Rome. In his thirties, he came across Neo platonic philosophy and eventually became a devout Christian. In 396 B.C. he...
  3. Hate Quotes It is better to be hated for who you are, than to be loved for someone you are not. - Anonymous Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY,...