On this his Feast Day, some of my favorite Confessions from Augustine:
What return shall I make to the Lord for my ability to recall these things with no fear in my soul? I will love you, Lord, and thank you, and praise your name, because you have forgiven me such great sins and such wicked deeds. I acknowledge that it was by your grace and mercy that you melted away my sins like ice. I ask, too, that by your grace I was preserved from whatever sins I did not commit, for there was no knowing what I might have done, since I loved evil even if it served no purpose. I avow that you have forgiven me all, both the sins which I committed of my own accord and those which by your guidance I was spared from committing.
A statement is not necessarily true because it is wrapped in fine language or false because it is awkwardly expressed...An assertion is not necessarily true because it is badly expressed or false because it is finely spoken. I had learnt that wisdom and folly are like different kinds of food. Some are wholesome and others are not, but both can be served equally well on the finest china dish or the meanest earthenware. In just the same way, wisdom and folly can be clothed alike in plain words or the finest flowers of speech.
Men love the truth when it bathes them in its light: they hate it when it proves them wrong. Because they hate to be deceived themselves, but are glad if they can deceive others, they love the truth when it is revealed to them but hate it when it reveals that they are wrong.
...evil is nothing but the removal of good until finally no good remains.
The man who serves you best is the one who is less intent on hearing from you what he wills to hear than on shaping his will according to what he hears from you.
Give me the grace to do as you command, and command me to do what you will!
A statement is not necessarily true because it is wrapped in fine language or false because it is awkwardly expressed...An assertion is not necessarily true because it is badly expressed or false because it is finely spoken. I had learnt that wisdom and folly are like different kinds of food. Some are wholesome and others are not, but both can be served equally well on the finest china dish or the meanest earthenware. In just the same way, wisdom and folly can be clothed alike in plain words or the finest flowers of speech.
Men love the truth when it bathes them in its light: they hate it when it proves them wrong. Because they hate to be deceived themselves, but are glad if they can deceive others, they love the truth when it is revealed to them but hate it when it reveals that they are wrong.
...evil is nothing but the removal of good until finally no good remains.
The man who serves you best is the one who is less intent on hearing from you what he wills to hear than on shaping his will according to what he hears from you.
Give me the grace to do as you command, and command me to do what you will!
