The Confessions of Saint Augustine (Image Classics Book 2)

by Augustine of Hippo

now I have more pity for one who rejoices in a shameful deed than for one who has suffered,

As you live, it is impossible that the son of such tears should perish.”

I considered how countless were the things that I believed, although I had not seen them nor was I present when they took place. Such were so many events in human history, so many things about places and cities that I had not seen, so many things about my friends, so many things about physicians, so many things about countless other men.

“Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you.”

a spirit that was still bold rather than strong, and that was all the weaker because it presumed upon itself

Cast yourself trustfully on him: he will receive you and he will heal you.”

Just as fawning friends pervert us, so also quarrelsome enemies often correct us.

No doubt, therefore, memory is the mind’s stomach, as it were, and joy and sadness are like sweet and bitter food. When they are committed to memory, they are as it were passed into the stomach and they can be stored away there, but they cannot be tasted.

Woe to the prosperity of this world, once and again, both from fear of adversity and from corruption of joy!