Augustine of Hippo

“ I sinned, then, when as a boy I preferred those empty to those more profitable studies, or rather hated the one and loved the other. "One and one, two;"two and two, four;" this was to me a hateful singsong: "the wooden horse filled with armed men," and "the burning of Troy," and "Creusa's shade" were the vain spectacle most charming to me. ”

“ For what could be more miserable than a miserable being, who commiserates not himself, weeping the death of Dido which came of her love to Æneas, but weeping not his own death which came of want of love to Thee, O God, Thou light of my heart, Thou bread of my inmost soul, Thou power who makest fertile my mind, and the thought of my bosom? ”

“ Æneas" is written, all who have learnt this will answer me aright, according to the use and wont, by which men have established those signs among themselves. If, again, I should ask, which might be forgotten with less detriment to the concerns of life, reading and writing or these poetic fictions, who does not foresee, what all must answer who have not wholly forgotten themselves? ”