“Late have I loved thee, O beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved thee: for behold you were within me, and I outside; and I sought you outside and in my unloveliness fell upon those lovely things that You had made. You were with me, and I was not with You.
I was kept from You by those things, yet had they not been in You, they would not have been at all. You called and tried to break open my deafness: and You sent forth Your beams and shone upon me and chased away my blindness: You breathed fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and I do now pant for You: I taste You, and now hunger and thirst for You: You touched me, and I have burned for Your peace.”

St. Augustine