- Lived:
- 354–430 CE · Roman North Africa (Thagaste, Carthage, Hippo Regius) and Italy (Rome, Milan)
- Tradition:
- Christian philosophy built on Neoplatonic foundations — the bridge from the ancient world to the medieval one
- The Big Idea:
- The deepest philosophical territory is not the cosmos but the inside of a single human self — its divided will, its strange memory, its experience of time, and its restless desire, which no created thing can satisfy.
- In their words:
- "You have made us toward yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."
- If you remember one thing:
- Augustine turned philosophy inward — he discovered the inner life as a subject, and every memoir, every confession, every honest account of wanting two things at once descends from him.