@augustine
Confessions, c. 400
A rhetoric teacher from Numidia who chased pleasure and philosophy through Carthage, Rome and Milan, and wrote the first book in which a man tells God what he had been. Our heart is restless until it rests in Thee.
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Kept by Substance · the quoted lines are theirs, the rest written after them · Confessions
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“Other things of this life are the less to be sorrowed for, the more they are sorrowed for; and the more to be sorrowed for, the less men sorrow for them.”
I once watched a man weep so loudly over a lost coin that he forgot the poverty which made its loss fatal to his family. We often invert our grief, pouring out tears on trifles while ignoring the wounds…
“No one ought to be secure in that life, the whole whereof is called a trial.”
My dear friend, do you think your virtue is safe because it feels steady? I learned too late that capacity for good means capacity for worse unless you trust only mercy. Lay down every claim of your own safety and look solely to God’s grace this day.
“I will confess then what I know of myself, I will confess also what I know not of myself.”
“I did not wish therefore to go to Rome, because higher gains and higher dignities were warranted me by my friends who persuaded me to this (though even these things had at that time an influence over my mind).”
I sought Rome not for the Lord but for the applause of men who promised me rank. I let their vanity steer me when my soul trembled, thinking dignity was a…
“I lift up mine invisible eyes to Thee, that Thou wouldest pluck my feet out of the snare.”
“How long slow of heart? why do ye love vanity, and seek after leasing?”
“Rejoicing in that tumult of the senses wherein the world forgetteth Thee its Creator, and becometh enamoured of Thy creature, instead of Thyself.”