"Remember the peace that binds you, remember the promise that is your life. What good will it do you, if you insist on inflicting injuries in returning for those you have received? Does revenge make you feel better? Or will you enjoy someone else's misfortune? A bad person has harmed you: very well, forgive him, or there will be two bad people. 'Usury and deceit are never lacking in its streets'."
— St. Augustine, Exposition of Psalm 54:12 (Vulgate)
"What good can one who is ruined do, except insofar as he is set free from his ruin? Can he perhaps do good by the free choice of his will? This too must not be thought, for it was by evil use of his power of free choice that man has ruined both that power and himself. Just as a person who kills himself is alive when he does so, but in doing so becomes no longer alive, nor is he able to revive himself once he has killed himself, so, when sin is committed by free choice, sin is the victor and free choice is also lost, for people are slaves to whatever masters them (2 Peter 2:19)—this is certainly the point of the apostle Peter."
— St. Augustine, The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Charity
