Augustine of Hippo Quotes on Virtue
Augustine's account of virtue, reflected in the quotes gathered here, makes rightly ordered love its foundation. His famous epitome of the moral life, love and do what you will, locates the source of virtue not in rules but in the direction of one's desire, so that the cultivation of pure desires and virtuous habits is what truly brings the soul nearer to God. The Confessions supply one of his most candid admissions of the difficulty of virtue, the youthful prayer give me chastity and continence, but not yet. Augustine also distinguishes natural goods such as beauty, which God grants even to the wicked, from genuine virtue, and he names patience the companion of wisdom. Drawn from across his works, these passages show virtue as a matter of the will's love rather than mere outward conduct.
Quotes
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“Love, and do what you will.”
Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love , and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace , through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good . -
“Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet.”
At ego adulescens miser ualde, miser in exordio ipsius adulescentiae, etiam petieram a te castitatem et dixeram, 'Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo. -
“Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.”
XV, 22 -
Attributed to Augustine of Hippo:
“There is no possible source of evil except good.”
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“Patience is the companion of wisdom.”
Patientia comes est sapientiae -
“If there is something more excellent than the truth , then that is God ; if not, then truth itself is God.”
De Libero Arbitrio(388 - 395) -
“It is not by change of place that we can come nearer to Him who is in every place, but by the cultivation of pure desires and virtuous habits.”
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers(1895) | p. 433 -
“Variant translation: The spiritual virtue of a sacrament is like light : although it passes among the impure, it is not polluted.”
As quoted in Familiar Quotations , 9th edition (1892) edited by John Bartlett, p. 169 Comparable to: The sun , too, shines into cesspools and is not polluted. Diogenes Laërtius , Lib. vi. section 63 A very weighty argument is this — namely,