Confessions of Saint Augustine

in bodies themselves, there was a beauty.

Blessed is he who loves You, and his friend in You, and his enemy for You. For he alone loses none dear to him, to whom all are dear in Him who cannot be lost. And who is this but our God, the God that made heaven and earth and fills them, because by filling them He created them? You lose none but him who leaves.

not out of a pure love for You, O God of my heart; for I did not know how to love You.

we are ashamed not to be shameless.

O friendship too unfriendly

my own sin, which I enjoyed

to be gratuitously evil, having no temptation to wrongdoing but the wrongdoing itself

every ungodly desire should be its own punishment.

deliver those, too, who do not call on You yet, that they may call on You and You may deliver them

should learn much about himself from others and rely much on the strength of females.