First, I am more than a bit embarrassed that I made it through two seminary degrees and almost twenty years of pastoral ministry without reading The Confessions of Augustine. Second, the portions of this book relating to Platonism, the world of memory, ideas, forms, and time are challenging for readers who are not accustomed to thinking about reality on Platonic terms. Third, this book is truly and remarkably insightful with respect to the character of God, the nature of man, and the grace of God that changes our wills. Fourth, consider the following quotes, and consider reading The Confessions for yourself!

• “For Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.” (I:I, pg 2) … Perhaps the most famous quote from The Confessions.
• “I have dared to say that You were silent, my God, when I went afar from you.” (II:III, pg 31) … Augustine remembering how he blamed God for his silence when Augustine was the one running from God.
• “I know that it is only by Thy grace and mercy that Thou hast melted away the ice of my sins. And the evil I have not done, that also I know is by Thy grace: for what might I not have done, seeing that I loved evil solely because it was evil?” (II:VII, pg 37) … Augustine praising God’s sovereign grace.
• “Time takes no holiday, it does not roll idly by, but through our senses works its own wonders in the mind.” (IV:VII, pg 71) … Augustine writing about the role time plays in the experience of grief (he had recently lost a close friend).
• “Wherever the soul of man turns, unless towards God, it cleaves to sorrow, even though the things outside God and outside itself to which it cleaves may be things of beauty.” (IV:X, pg 73) … Augustine explaining that good things elevated to God-status lead only to sorrow, not joy.
• “Receive the sacrifice of my confessions offered by my tongue which Thou didst form and hast moved to confess unto Thy name.” (V:I, pg 88) … Augustine confessing truth about his ability to confess sin.
• “All unknowing I was brought by God to him, that knowing I should be brought by him to God.” (V:VIII, pg 108) … Augustine speaking about his move to Milan where he would meet Ambrose who would lead him to Christ.
• “I was to utter any number of lies to win the applause of people who knew they were lies.” (VI:VI, pg 121) … Augustine writing of his work of teaching rhetoric and giving speeches.
• “The plain truth is that I thought I should be impossibly miserable if I had to forego the embraces of a woman: and I did not think of Your mercy as a healing medicine for that weakness, because I had never tried it.” (VI:XI, pg 131) … Augustine describing his hesitancy to convert.
• “For no soul ever has been able to conceive or ever will be able to conceive anything better than You, the supreme and perfect Good.” (VII:IV, pg 144) … Augustine reflecting on the character of God in terms that Anselm would later use in the so-called ontological argument for God.
• “I sought for the origin of evil, but I sought in an evil manner, and failed to see the evil that there was in my manner of enquiry.” (VII:V, pg 145) … Augustine reflecting on how his own sin tainted his questions about sin.
• “For in that instant, with the very ending of the sentence, it was as though a light of utter confidence shone in all my heart, and all the darkness of uncertainty vanished away.” (VII:VII, pg 195) … Augustine describing his conversion after reading Rom 13:13-14 in the courtyard of a monastery.
• “But You, Lord, are good and merciful, and Your right hand had regard to the profundity of my death and drew me out of the abyss of corruption that was in the bottom of my heart. By Your gift I had come totally not to will what I willed but to will what You willed.” (IX:I, pg 198) … Augustine attributing his conversion to God’s mercy and saving power.
• “Men are a race curious to know of other men’s lives, but slothful to correct their own.” (X:III, pg 231) … Augustine describing human nature in a way that seems remarkably contemporary.
• “All my hope is naught save in Thy great mercy. Grant what Thou dost command, and command what Thou wilt.” (X:XXIX, 259) … Augustine describing the dynamic between the freedom of our wills and the commands of God, especially as it relates to our salvation and growth in holiness.
• “On the whole I am inclined … to approve the custom of singing in church, that by the pleasure of the ear the weaker minds may be roused to a feeling of devotion. Yet whenever that happens that I am more moved by the singing than by the thing that is sung, I admit that I have grievously sinned, and then I should wish rather not to have heard the singing.” (X:XXXIII, pg 267) … Augustine arguing for the recent practice of congregational singing, while also admitting that music can easily control our emotions apart from the doctrinal truths we are singing.