Quotes

"'Grief darkened my heart' (Lam. 5:17). Everything on which I set my gaze was death. My hometown became a torture to me; my father's house a strange world of unhappiness; all that I had shared with him was without him changed into cruel torment. My eyes looked for him everywhere, and he was not there. I hated everything because they did not have him, nor could they now tell me 'look, he is on the way', as used to be the case when he was alive and absent from me. I had become to myself a vast problem, and I questioned my soul 'Why are you sad, and why are you very distressed?' But my soul did not know what reply to give. ... Only tears were sweet to me, and in my 'soul's delights' (Ps. 138:11) weeping had replaced my friend."

--Augustine's Confessions, Book IV

"There were other things which occupied my mind in the company of my friends: to make conversation, to share a joke, to perform mutual acts of kindness, to read together well-written books, to share in trifling and in serious matters, to disagree though without animosity--just as a person debates with himself--and in the very rarity of disagreement to find the salt of normal harmony, to teach each other something or to learn from one another, to long with impatience for those absent, to welcome them with gladness on their arrival. These and other signs come from the heart of those who love and are loved and are expressed through the mouth, through the tongue, through the eyes, and a thousand gestures of delight, acting as fuel to set our minds on fire and out of many to forge unity."

--ditto