Keep on walking

You ask, “What does walking mean?” I’ll tell you very briefly: it means forging ahead... Forge ahead, my friends, always examine yourselves without self-deception, without flattery, without pretending to yourself. There's nobody there inside you whom you have to be embarrassed to face, or whom you need to impress. There is someone there, but one who is impressed with humility: let him test you, and you, too, test yourself. Always be dissatisfied with what you are, if you want to arrive at what you are not yet. Because at the point you are pleased with yourself, there you are stuck. And if you say, “That’s enough,” then you’ve even perished. Always add some more, always keep on walking, always forge ahead. Don’t stop on the road, don’t turn round and go back, don’t wander. If you don’t forge ahead, you stop; if you turn back to what you have already left behind, you go backwards; if you apostatize, you leave the road. The lame person on the road goes better than the runner off the road.

Quote: St Augustine, Sermo 169.18; PL 38:926.