Do not despair: one thief was saved. Do not presume: one thief was damned
Not Augustine of Hippo — a later proverb pinned on himUnknown — a preacher’s proverb credited to AugustineCredited to Augustine (354–430) in English print by 1592
This exact couplet has never been found in Augustine’s surviving writings. The 1592 pamphlet The Repentance of Robert Greene already credited “St. Augustine” with the thought, in different words: “one thief saved and no more, therefore presume not, and there was one saved, and therefore despair not.” Samuel Beckett, who was fond of the line, made the modern form famous.
“Do not despair: one thief was saved. Do not presume: one thief was damned” Popularly attributed to Augustine of Hippo, but not found in his surviving writings; a differently worded version is credited to him in The Repentance of Robert Greene (1592). Via Quotle.info
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Provenance
Where the attribution actually appears
Status
Not found in Augustine’s surviving writings
Work cited by Wikiquote
The Repentance of Robert Greene, Master of Arts
Printed
London, for Cuthbert Burbie, 1592
Wikiquote section
Disputed
To this doth that golden sentence of St. Augustine allude which he speaketh of the thief hanging on the cross: There was (saith he) one thief saved and no more, therefore presume not, and there was one saved, and therefore despair not.
1592 wording
Quoted from Nina Green’s modern-spelling transcript of the 1592 pamphlet. The pamphlet credits Augustine with the idea but not the popular wording: it puts “presume not” first, never says “damned,” and names no work of Augustine’s.
1592: the pamphlet The Repentance of Robert Greene credits “that golden sentence of St. Augustine” about the thief on the cross, in different words (transcript ↗).
1649: Hezekiah Holland’s sermon collection A Christian looking-glasse has the same lesson with no attribution: “as one thief was saved to teach (us) not to despair — so another was damned, to teach thee, not to presume” (Early English Printed Sermons ↗).
1895: Gilbert’s Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers gives yet another wording under Augustine’s name (Wikiquote: Penitent thief ↗).
Today: Wikiquote files the popular couplet under “Disputed” on its Augustine page (Wikiquote ↗).
No original source for the exact popular wording has been identified, so we make no copyright claim about it. The differently worded 1592 pamphlet is centuries old, but it does not contain this couplet.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Who gets the credit, and why it doesn’t hold
The couplet is almost always printed as Augustine’s, often with no work named. The trail shows a sermon commonplace that has been credited to him, in shifting wordings, for centuries.
✕
Popular creditAugustine of Hippo Not in his works
The scholar James O’Donnell, in Augustine, Sinner and Saint (2005), writes that “the particular passage cannot be found anywhere in the surviving writings of Augustine,” as quoted on Faith and Theology ↗. Wikiquote lists the line as Disputed ↗.
✕
Early attribution, different wordsThe Repentance of Robert Greene (1592)
This pamphlet credits “St. Augustine” with a looser version: “one thief saved and no more, therefore presume not, and there was one saved, and therefore despair not.” It names no work of Augustine’s (transcript ↗).
✕
PopularizerSamuel Beckett
Beckett “was fond of the epigram from St. Augustine” (Utah Shakespeare Festival study guide ↗). O’Donnell says Beckett told a story built on it to help interpreters with Waiting for Godot, and asks whether Beckett is “the most modern of pseudo-Augustines” (as quoted ↗).
✓By the 1600s the lesson — one thief saved so that no one despairs, one damned so that no one presumes — was a stock sermon point, given without attribution by Hezekiah Holland in 1649 ↗. It was already credited to Augustine in 1592, in other words, but no one has found the crisp modern couplet in anything he wrote.
Context
Why it sticks to Augustine
The saying distills a real Christian teaching about the two criminals crucified beside Jesus (Luke 23): the penitent thief shows that it is never too late, and the other shows that a deathbed turn cannot be counted on. Augustine was the West’s great theologian of grace, so he was the natural name to hang it on. The 1592 pamphlet The Repentance of Robert Greene already calls it “that golden sentence of St. Augustine.”
Its modern fame owes a lot to Samuel Beckett. O’Donnell wondered whether Beckett simply made the quotation up. The 1592 pamphlet shows that Augustine’s name was attached to the idea centuries before Beckett, but the polished two-sentence form still has no located source in Augustine.
“It is wonderfully Beckett-like that the particular passage cannot be found anywhere in the surviving writings of Augustine.” — James O’Donnell
What we could not confirm
Many retellings say Beckett gave this line in a specific 1950s interview. We could not fetch a source that reproduces that interview, so this page names no interviewer, date or publication for Beckett’s remark.
We also do not claim the 1592 pamphlet as the first appearance. It is simply the earliest source Wikiquote cites.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
354–430 AD · Bishop of Hippo, theologian & Church Father
Augustine was bishop of Hippo Regius in Roman North Africa and the author of the Confessions and The City of God. He is among the most influential of the Latin Church Fathers. Because his name carries so much authority, sermons and quote books have credited him with many neat moral sayings that appear nowhere in his works, and this two-thieves couplet is one of them.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Best-available citation
Attributed to Augustine of Hippo; not found in his surviving writings. A differently worded version is credited to “St. Augustine” in The Repentance of Robert Greene, Master of Arts (London: Cuthbert Burbie, 1592). The line is listed as disputed on Wikiquote, “Augustine of Hippo.”
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Do not despair: one thief was saved. Do not presume: one thief was damned’?” Last verified 2 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/do-not-despair-one-thief-was-saved-do-not-presume-one-thief/