Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you
Not Augustine of Hippo — an old maxim of uncertain originUnknown (traditionally credited to Ignatius of Loyola)Origin undocumented · earliest printings reported from the 1860s
No work of Augustine contains this line. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§2834) ↗ prints “Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you,” but its footnote says only “Attributed to St. Ignatius Loyola.” Trent Horn ↗ reports that even that attribution is unproven: the exact formula is not in Ignatius’s writings, and 1860s printings credit it variously to Ignatius and to John Wesley.
“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you” Not Augustine. An old maxim of unknown origin, traditionally credited to Ignatius of Loyola (Catechism of the Catholic Church §2834, n. 122: “Attributed to St. Ignatius Loyola”), though the exact formula is not in his writings. Via quotle.info
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Augustine of Hippo. Use the credit shown above instead.
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Provenance
Where the wording is actually documented
Work
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2834
Wording there
“Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you.”
Footnote 122
“Attributed to St. Ignatius Loyola, cf. Joseph de Guibert, SJ, The Jesuits: Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice, (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1964), 148, n. 55.”
Augustine
No known source in any of his works
“Pray and work.” “Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you.” Even when we have done our work, the food we receive is still a gift from our Father; it is good to ask him for it with thanksgiving…
Catechism §2834
The Catechism never names Augustine. It footnotes the line as only “Attributed to St. Ignatius Loyola,” and the popular “as though… Work as though” wording is a later variant.
The Catechism (§2834, n. 122) ↗ prints the maxim and attributes it, with a hedge, to Ignatius of Loyola, not Augustine.
Trent Horn, “St. Ignatius Said What?” ↗, quotes the editor of de Guibert’s book: “In this precise formula, the thought is nowhere found in Ignatius’s writings nor in any contemporary documents.”
Horn’s earliest finds are an 1868 American Phrenological Journal variant credited to Ignatius and, a year earlier, an Evangelical journal crediting John Wesley with “Work and preach as if everything depended on you, but pray as if everything depended on God” (Catholic Answers ↗).
The quotation database WIST ↗ labels the Augustine credit “Misattributed” and notes that the line is also pinned on St. Benedict, Brigham Young and Cardinal Spellman.
The popular wording, “Pray as though… Work as though…”, has no identifiable author or first publication, so no rights status is asserted. The related wording in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is copyrighted text of the Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Augustine himself never wrote the line.
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
This maxim has floated between famous names for about a century and a half. Augustine is one of the most common modern credits, but no one has produced a passage from his works that contains it.
✕
Popular creditAugustine of Hippo No source
Quote sites widely credit him, but no work of his contains the line. WIST ↗ labels the attribution “Misattributed,” and Augustine’s Wikiquote page ↗ does not list it among his sourced quotations.
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Traditional creditIgnatius of Loyola Unproven
The Catechism ↗ says “Attributed to St. Ignatius Loyola.” According to Trent Horn ↗, the editor of the cited Jesuit study says the precise formula is not in Ignatius’s writings, though it “does correspond to his ideas.” A reversed Latin version first appears in the Scintillae Ignatianae, compiled about 150 years after Ignatius died.
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1860s variantJohn Wesley Rival credit
Horn ↗ found an Evangelical journal, a year before the 1868 Ignatius citation, quoting Wesley: “Work and preach as if everything depended on you, but pray as if everything depended on God.”
✕
Other creditsSt. Benedict, Brigham Young, Cardinal Francis Spellman
WIST ↗ lists all three as further attributions and notes that the saying predates Spellman.
✓The truth is that the maxim’s author is unknown. It is best described as an old Christian saying, traditionally but unprovably linked to Ignatius of Loyola, and it is not from Augustine (Catholic Answers ↗).
Context
Which way round?
Part of the dispute is about the order of the two halves. Some Jesuits argue that the authentic Ignatian thought runs the other way: trust God as if everything depended on you, and work as if everything depended on God. Horn ↗ traces that reversed form to the Scintillae Ignatianae and judges it “more likely to be authentic” than the popular one, while adding that “we are still far from certain.” Jim Manney of IgnatianSpirituality.com ↗ also prefers the reversed wording.
The closest early text is a description, not a slogan. Ignatius’s biographer Pedro de Ribadeneira, writing less than twenty years after the saint’s death, said Ignatius used human means “as if the success depended on these means” while trusting God “as if all the other human means… were of no effect” (quoted by Horn ↗).
“In this precise formula, the thought is nowhere found in Ignatius’s writings nor in any contemporary documents.”
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1491–1556 · Spanish priest, founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits)
Ignatius of Loyola founded the Jesuits and wrote the Spiritual Exercises. He is the figure most often linked to this maxim, and the Catholic Catechism footnotes it as “attributed” to him. The idea fits his outlook, but scholars note that this exact formula is found nowhere in his own writings or in documents from his lifetime. The closest early parallel is a description of his habits in Pedro de Ribadeneira’s biography of him.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Best available documentation
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2834 and n. 122 (“Attributed to St. Ignatius Loyola”), Vatican, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__PAA.HTM; Trent Horn, “St. Ignatius Said What?” Catholic Answers Magazine, July 31, 2019, https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/st-ignatius-said-what.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you’?” Last verified 2 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/pray-as-though-everything-depended-on-god-work-as-though/