Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are
Not Augustine of Hippo — an unsourced modern attributionUnknownOrigin untraced · in print by the late 1980s
No passage in Augustine’s works has been found that contains this line. Wikiquote files it under “Disputed,” and its only citation is a 1988 book by the theologian Robert McAfee Brown, which credits Augustine without naming a source. Brown later said he could not place it in Augustine’s writings either.
“Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are” widely attributed to Augustine of Hippo, but not found in his works. The earliest citation on Wikiquote is Robert McAfee Brown, Spirituality and Liberation (1988), p. 136, which gives no source.
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Augustine of Hippo. Use the credit shown above instead.
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.
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In context
Evoking the themes of hope, courage and justice. Theme: "Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
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Provenance
Where the line actually turns up
Credited to
Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
Found in Augustine’s works?
No. No passage has been located
Earliest citation on Wikiquote
Spirituality and Liberation: Overcoming the Great Fallacy (Westminster Press, 1988), Robert McAfee Brown, p. 136
Wikiquote section
Disputed
Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.
This is the wording Wikiquote transcribes from Brown’s 1988 book. The version that circulates online ends “as they are” rather than “the way they are.” Neither wording has been traced to Augustine.
Wikiquote ↗ lists the line under “Disputed.” Its only citation is Robert McAfee Brown’s Spirituality and Liberation: Overcoming the Great Fallacy (1988), p. 136, which is a secondary source and not a work by Augustine.
The fact-check blog They Didn’t Say It ↗ (2018) found no Google Books results before 1987. It also reports that Brown himself, in Speaking of Christianity (p. 74), called it “a reflective comment whose location in the Augustinian corpus I wish I could pinpoint.”
A note under this entry on Wikiquote’s talk page ↗ reports that Brown’s acknowledgments (p. 11) thank Sr. Joan Delaplane, O.P., “for a quotation from Augustine … that has empowered me ever since I heard her use it.” That suggests he heard it spoken rather than read it in a text.
WIST Quotations ↗ marks the attribution “Spurious”: widely attributed to Augustine but not recognizably found in his works.
This exact wording cannot be tied to any identifiable author or original work, so we assert no copyright status. Augustine’s genuine Latin writings are long in the public domain, but this line is not one of them. Brown’s 1988 book, where the line was printed and credited to someone else, is a modern copyrighted work.
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
Why Augustine gets the credit
The line reads like a patristic aphorism, and Augustine wrote about hope at length. That has been enough for it to spread under his name through sermons, social-justice homilies and quote sites. No one who has checked has found it in his works.
✕
Popular creditAugustine of Hippo Unsourced
The line is not found in his writings. Wikiquote ↗ files it as Disputed, and WIST ↗ calls it spurious, “not recognizably found in his works.”
~
Earliest cited printingRobert McAfee Brown Popularizer, not author
Brown quoted it as Augustine’s in Spirituality and Liberation (1988), the citation Wikiquote ↗ gives. According to They Didn’t Say It ↗, he later admitted he could not pinpoint its location in Augustine. No one claims Brown wrote it himself.
✕
Catholic commentaryArchbishop Charles Chaput Calls it apocryphal
As quoted by They Didn’t Say It ↗, Chaput wrote in Strangers in a Strange Land (p. 162): “The words are apocryphal. There’s no real evidence that Augustine ever wrote them.”
✕
Recent essayFrancis X. Maier, First Things (2021) Doubts it
Maier built a March 2021 essay ↗ around the line but conceded the words “may not be his.” He wrote that an Augustine-scholar friend considers them apocryphal and that he has never been able to find their source.
✓The line has not been found in any work by Augustine. It appears in late-1980s theology writing that cites no source, and its real originator is unknown. See Wikiquote ↗ and They Didn’t Say It ↗.
Context
Why it caught on
The “two daughters” line became a favorite of social-justice and liberation-theology preaching because it treats anger as a companion of hope, not its enemy. Robert McAfee Brown, a Presbyterian theologian, put it in print in 1988 in Spirituality and Liberation, a book arguing that prayer and social action are two ways of talking about the same thing. From there it moved into homilies, parish bulletins and quote sites.
Even writers who love the line hedge it. In First Things ↗ (2021), Francis X. Maier wrote that the words are “attributed to St. Augustine” but “may not be his.” As reported by They Didn’t Say It ↗, Archbishop Chaput called them apocryphal while adding that their content is “clearly true and worth remembering.”
“a reflective comment whose location in the Augustinian corpus I wish I could pinpoint” — Robert McAfee Brown, as quoted by They Didn’t Say It
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
354–430 · Bishop of Hippo, theologian & philosopher
Aurelius Augustinus was a North African bishop and one of the most influential Church Fathers. His authentic works include the Confessions and The City of God. He wrote a great deal about hope, but this tidy “two daughters” line has not been found anywhere in his writings, and the person who actually coined it is unknown.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest citation on Wikiquote
Earliest citation recorded by Wikiquote: Robert McAfee Brown, Spirituality and Liberation: Overcoming the Great Fallacy (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988), 136, where it is credited to Augustine without a source. It has not been found in any work by Augustine of Hippo.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are’?” Last verified 2 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/hope-has-two-beautiful-daughters-their-names-are-anger-and/