Augustine of Hippo

Every line we carry

Each one links to its source, what it means, and the shirt in any of our looks.

1. Our heart is restless until it rests in you.

   The opening page of the Confessions names the hunger under every other hunger. Success, pleasure and praise never fully settle us because we were made for more. When the restlessness comes, treat it as a compass, not a malfunction.

   Confessions 1.1.1, E. B. Pusey, 1838

2. Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new.

   Augustine came to faith in his thirties after years of searching in the wrong places. He grieves the lost time but rejoices that it was not too late. Whatever you find late, love it now with everything you have.

   Confessions 10.27.38, E. B. Pusey, 1838

3. You were within, and I was outside, looking for you.

   We hunt outside ourselves for what is closest to us. Augustine found that the one he sought had been inside all along. Before you look further away, look deeper in.

   Confessions 10.27.38, E. B. Pusey, 1838

4. You were with me, but I was not with you.

   Presence was never the problem; attention was. Augustine was distracted by beautiful things and missed the giver of them. Show up to the life you are already in.

   Confessions 10.27.38, E. B. Pusey, 1838

5. Take it and read. Take it and read.

   Weeping in a garden in Milan, Augustine heard a child's voice chanting these words. He opened the book beside him and his life turned. Sometimes change starts with the simplest act: pick it up and read.

   Confessions 8.12.29, E. B. Pusey, 1838

6. People travel to wonder at mountains and seas, and pass themselves by.

   Augustine is amazed at the depth of human memory, larger than any landscape. We cross the world to see big waves and never look at the ocean inside. Travel well, and also take the trip inward.

   Confessions 10.8.15, E. B. Pusey, 1838

7. I had become a great question to myself.

   Augustine wrote this after the death of his closest friend, when grief made him a stranger to himself. Not understanding yourself is part of being human. Ask the hard questions about your own heart and stay with them.

   Confessions 4.4.9, E. B. Pusey, 1838

8. Blessed is whoever loves you, his friend in you, his enemy for you.

   Love rooted in God can reach even an enemy. Augustine adds that such a person loses no one dear, because all are held in one who cannot be lost. Let your love be anchored deep enough to stretch that far.

   Confessions 4.9.14, E. B. Pusey, 1838

9. My weight is my love. Wherever I am carried, love carries me.

   In ancient physics, things moved toward their natural place by their weight: stones down, fire up. Augustine says love is the weight of the soul. Whatever you love most is where your life will end up, so choose it well.

   Confessions 13.9.10, E. B. Pusey, 1838

10. What is time? If no one asks me, I know.

    The most familiar things can be the hardest to explain. Augustine's honesty about time opened one of philosophy's great inquiries. Admit what you cannot define, and keep thinking anyway.

    Confessions 11.14.17, E. B. Pusey, 1838

11. O love that always burns and never goes out, set me on fire.

    Augustine prays to a love that is a fire which never dies. He asks not to understand it but to catch it. Ask to be lit, and keep the flame fed.

    Confessions 10.29.40, E. B. Pusey, 1838