Augustine's Confessions: Regarding Pleasure...

Right now I'm reading this for Church History. This book is VERY genuine! I'm having a hard time controlling my underlining...here are some samplings:

He sounds like Jonathan Edwards, C.S. Lewis, and John Piper in that our desire for true pleasure is too weak because it is satisfied in things less than God Himself...

"[Book II.5 Pp. 48] The eye is attracted by beautiful objects, by gold and silver and all such things. There is great pleasure, too, in feeling something agreeable to the touch, the material things have various qualities to please each of the other senses. Again, it is gratifying to be held in esteem by other men and to have the power of giving them orders and gaining the mastery over them. This is also the reason why revenge is sweet. But our ambition to obtain all these things must not lead us astray from you, O Lord, nor must we depart from what your law allows. The life we live on earth has its own attractions as well, because it has a certain beauty of its own in harmony with all the rest of this world's beauty. Friendship among men, too, is a delightful bond, uniting many souls in one. All these things and their like can be occasions of sin because, good though they are, they are of the lowest order of good, and if we are too much tempted by them we abandon those higher and better things, your truth, your law, and you yourself, O Lord our God. For these earthly things, too, can give joy, though not such joy as my God, who made them all, can give [my emphasis], because honest men will rejoice in the Lord; upright hearts will not boast in vain (Psalm 63:11; 64:10)."