How we cite our quotes: (Book.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Even though it clings to things of beauty, if their beauty is outside God and outside the soul, it only clings to sorrow. (IV.10.1)
We think that clinging to something sounds kind of desperate, right? Also, beauty sounds so flimsy in this quote; is there anything beautiful that stays beautiful? It's like sorrow is the very loss of beauty, or the knowledge that beauty isn't permanent. Not only is the person who clings to beauty weak, but beauty itself is weak, too. Diamonds might disagree with our man Augustine on this point.
Quote #5
So I used to argue that your unchangeable substance, my God, was forced to err, rather than admit that my own was changeable and erred of its own free will, and that is errors were my punishment. (IV.15.5)
At this point in the book, we've really gotten a sense that weakness lies in the proclivity to change. Here, Augustine talks about how he accounted for the existence of evil in the world, and reasoned that evil had to have come from God, because God made everything. But he leaves his own weakness out of the equation. Way to avoid taking responsibility, Augustine.
Quote #6
I refused to allow myself to accept any of it in my heart, because I was afraid of a headlong fall, but I was hanging in suspense which was more likely to be fatal than a fall. (VI.4.2)
Old habits die hard. Augustine is the type of person who likes to be right about everything, and he argues as though he knows the truth. But after meeting Ambrose, he starts to question whether the Manichean beliefs that he subscribed to for the better part of a decade hold any water at all. Talk about a paradigm shift. Augustine may be humble as the writer of his Confessions, but the old Augustine wasn't exactly eager to admit being very, very wrong. We assume that the "headlong fall" refers to his spiritual failures. So, naturally, he's reluctant to accept the Christian doctrine that he derided for so long, even if his soul might be hanging in the balance.