Quotes from City of God

By Augustine

• There is no true virtue except that which is directed toward that end in which is the highest and ultimate good of man.#
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• Vice, too, is so contrary to nature, that it cannot but damage it. And therefore departure from God would be no vice, unless in a nature whose property it was to abide with God. So that even the wicked will is a strong proof of the goodness of the nature. But God, as he is the supremely good creator of good natures so he is of evil wills the most just ruler, so that while they make an ill use of good natures, he makes a good use even of evil wills.#
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• In scripture they are called God’s enemies who oppose his rule, not by nature, but by vice; having no power to hurt him, but only themselves. #
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• When the will abandons what is above itself, and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil – not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked.#
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• His [God’s] leisure, therefore, is no laziness, indolence, inactivity; as in his work is no labor, effort, industry.#
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• Wherefore it is not without meaning said that all sin is a lie. For no sin is committed save by that desire or will by which we desire that it be well with us, and shrink from it being ill with us. That, therefore, is a lie which we do in order that it may be well with us, but which makes us more miserable than we were.#
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• And indeed, this is already sin, to desire those things which the law of God forbids, and to abstain from them through fear of punishment, not through love of righteousness.#
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• For though God is said to change his determinations (so that in a tropical sense the Holy Scripture says even that God repented), this is said with reference to man’s expectation, or the order of natural causes, and not with reference to that which the Almighty had foreknown that he would do.#
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• For even they who intentionally interrupt the peace in which they are living have no hatred of peace, but only wish it changed into a peace that suits them better.#
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• It is true that wicked men do many things contrary to God’s will; but so great is his wisdom and power, that all things which seem adverse to his purpose do still tend toward those just and good ends and issues which he himself has foreknown. And consequently, when God is said to change his will, as when, for example, he becomes angry with those to whom he was gently, it is rather they than he who are changed, and they find him changed insofar as their experience of suffering at his hand is new, as the sun is changed to injured eyes, and becomes as it were fierce from being mild, and hurtful from being delightful, though in itself it remains the same as it was.#
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