My good deeds are your acts and your gifts; my evil ones are my own faults and your judgment.

But look, it is from my memory that I produce it when I say that there are four basic emotions of the mind: desire, joy, fear, sadness.

Great is the power of memory. It is a true marvel, my god, a profound and infinite multiplicity! And this is the mind, and this I myself am. What, then, am I, my god? Of what nature am I?

All wish for this happy life; all wish for this life which is the only happy one; joy in the truth is what all men wish.

Context for Book X Quotes

Book X, which is focused on the topic memory, marks the transition in the Confessions from autobiography to the direct analysis of philosophical and theological issues. Although this is a sudden transition in form and content, Augustine is following an underlying structure. This structure depends mainly on his view (which is not explicitly mentioned in the work) that the story of a soul's return to God is essentially the same as the story of the return to God of creation as a whole. Thus, the last four Books of the Confessions, in their deep vindication of Christianity, focus primarily on details of the world's existence in God rather than Augustine's own ascent to God.

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