Augustine of Hippo Quotes on Knowledge
Augustine's epistemology fuses Platonist insight with Christian doctrine. The doctrine of divine illumination — articulated across the early dialogues and the Confessions — holds that knowledge of eternal truths is possible only because the divine Light internally illuminates the human mind, much as physical light makes sensible objects visible to the eye. Against the Academic Skeptics, Augustine argued that systematic doubt is self-defeating: even the doubter knows that he doubts, and the certainty of one's own existence cannot be coherently denied — an argument anticipating Descartes's cogito by more than a millennium.
Quotes
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Attributed to Augustine of Hippo:
“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.”
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“What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know.”
Quid est ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio. -
“Patience is the companion of wisdom.”
Patientia comes est sapientiae -
“Augustine, Augustine, quid quaeris? Putasne brevi immettere vasculo mare totum?”
Augustinus, Augustinus, what are you trying to do? Do you believe to be able to pour the whole sea in a little jar? As quoted in the letter of Augustine to saint Cyril of Jerusalem related to the treaty titled On the Trinity -
“Augustinus, Augustinus, what are you trying to do? Do you believe to be able to pour the whole sea in a little jar? As quoted in the letter of Augustine to saint Cyril of Jerusalem related to the treaty titled On the Trinity”
Augustine, Augustine, quid quaeris? Putasne brevi immettere vasculo mare totum? -
“Noli foras ire, in teipsum redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas. Et si tuam naturam mutabilem inveneris, trascende et teipsum .”
Do not go outside yourself, return to yourself: truth dwells in the interiority of man and, if you find that your nature is changeable, transcend yourself too . As quoted in De vera religione , XXXIX, 72 -
“Nowhere in the Gospel do we read that the Lord said: "I am sending you a Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun and moon ." For He wanted to make Christians , not mathematicians .”
De actis cum Felice Manicheo {AD 404), translated as A Debate with Felix the Manichean , ¶1709, in The Faith of the Early Fathers Vol 3 : St. Augustine to the End of the Patristic Age by W.A. Jurgens, p. 88 | Variant translations: | One does not read in the Gospel that the Lord said: "I will send you the Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun and moon." For He willed to make them -
“The superfluities of the rich are the necessaries of the poor. They who possess superfluities, possess the goods of others.”
Patrologia Latina , vol. 37, p. 1922 -
“Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum.”
Love the sinner and hate the sin . Opera Omnia , Vol II. Col. 962, letter 211 | Alternate translation: With love for mankind and hatred of sins (vices). -
“The mind itself, its love [of itself] and its knowledge [of itself] are a kind of trinity.”
On the Trinity(417) | (Cambridge: 2002), Book 9, Chapter 4, Section 4, p. 27 -
“We were ensnared by the wisdom of the serpent; we are set free by the foolishness of God .”
De doctrina christiana | 1:14 Latin: Serpentis sapientia decepti sumus, Dei stultitia liberamur. -
“The inclination to seek the truth is safer than the presumption which regards unknown things as known.”
On the Trinity(417) | (Cambridge: 2002), Book 9, Chapter 1, p. 24 -
“I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful; but I never read in either of them, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden."”
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers(1895) | p. 62 -
“Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe , but believe that thou mayest understand.”
Tractates on the Gospel of John ; tractate XXIX on John 7:14-18, §6 A Select Library of the Nicene And Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church Volume VII by St. Augustine, chapter VII (1888) as translated by Philip Schaff . Compare: Ans -
“If thou shouldst say, 'It is enough, I have reached perfection ,' all is lost. For it is the function of perfection to make one know one's imperfection.”
Quoted by Aldous Huxley , in The Perennial Philosophy (1945)