“For my sin was in this - that I looked to pleasures, exaltations, truths not in God Himself but in His creatures (myself and the rest), and so I fell straight into sorrows, confusions, and mistakes. I thank you, my sweetness and my glory and my confidence, my God, I thank you for your gifts. But I pray you to preserve them for me; so you will preserve me and those which you gave me will be increased and brought to perfection, and I myself shall be with you; for my very being is your gift.”

— Augustine, Confessions (Book I, Chapter 20; Rex Warner, p39)