The angels surround and help the priest when he is celebrating Mass.
Saint AugustineRead
God will not suffer man to have a knowledge of things to come for if he had prescience of his prosperity, he would be careless and if understanding of his adversity, he would be despairing and senseless
Interpretation
What this quote means
Knowledge of the future could lead to carelessness in good times and despair in bad times, hindering meaningful choices.
Saint Augustine's quote suggests that if humans had foreknowledge of their future, it would negatively impact their ability to live fully in the present. Understanding the ups and downs of life before they occur might make individuals complacent when they expect good outcomes, or hopeless when faced with difficulties, ultimately diminishing their capacity to engage with life meaningfully.
Themes
KnowledgeFutureLifeAdversityProsperity
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of living in the moment, you could use this quote to highlight how anxiety about the future can distract us from our present actions.
More from Saint Augustine
All quotes →There is no health in those who are displeased by an element in Your creation, just as there was none in me when I was displeased by many things You had made. Because my soul didn't dare to say that my God displeased me, it refused to attribute to You whatever was displeasing.
Saint AugustineRead
Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.
Saint AugustineRead
Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.
Saint AugustineRead
Whatever skills I have acquired, whatever gifts I have been given, I place them at Your service.
Saint AugustineRead
Everyone who observes himself doubting observes a truth, and about that which he observes he is certain; therefore he is certain about a truth. Everyone therefore who doubts whether truth exists has in himself a truth on which not to doubt.... Hence one who can doubt at all ought not to doubt the existence of truth.
Saint AugustineRead
Similar quotes
I don't feel any vulgar gratitude to you[for helping me]. I almost feel as if You ought to be grateful to ME, for giving you the opportunity of enjoying the luxury of generosity. . . I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of increasing your stock of happiness. I may have been born to be a benefactor to you, by giving you an opportunity of assisting me.
Charles DickensRead
A quality is something capable of being completely embodied. A law never can be embodied in its character as a law except by determining a habit. A quality is how something may or might have been. A law is how an endless future must continue to be.
Charles Sanders PeirceRead
It was the first and most striking characteristic of Socrates never to become heated in discourse, never to utter an injurious or insulting word -- on the contrary, he persistently bore insult from others and thus put an end to the fray.
EpictetusRead
What is at issue is the conversion of the mind from the twilight of error to the truth, that climb up into the real world which we shall call true philosophy.
PlatoRead
It's not compatible to expect multilateralism to work and, at the same time, to expect to walk out with everything you wanted. This is a recipe for failure. If we prize the system, we have to come knowing that we will need to make compromises. Sometimes painful compromises.
Roberto AzevedoRead
On ne sait jamais! One never knows!
Antoine De Saint-ExuperyRead