Q0047

Augustine of Hippo

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Give what you command, and command what you will.
Thinker Augustine of Hippo
School Patristic Philosophy
Source X.31
Theme Will
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with X.31, within the tradition of Patristic Philosophy. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of will, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Augustine of Hippo's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Augustine of Hippo. (n.d.). Give what you command, and command what you will. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0047

MLA: Augustine of Hippo. “Give what you command, and command what you….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0047.

Chicago: Augustine of Hippo. “Give what you command, and command what you….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0047.

Same thinker

More from Augustine of Hippo

  1. You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
  2. Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!
  3. What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it to one who asks, I do not know.
  4. Take up and read; take up and read.
  5. Do not go outside; return into yourself. Truth dwells in the inner man.

All quotations by Augustine of Hippo

Same theme

More on will

  1. No one errs willingly.
  2. The essential achievement of the will is to attend to a difficult object and hold it fast before the mind.
  3. Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached.
  4. All life is suffering.
  5. Act so that the maxim of your will could always hold at the same time as a principle of universal legislation.

Browse the will theme