'What is the object of my love?' I asked the earth and it said ‘It is not I.’ I asked all that is in it, they made the same confession (Job 28: 12 f.). I asked the sea, the deeps, the living creatures that creep, and they responded: ‘We are not your God, look beyond us.’ I asked the breezes that blow and the entire air and its inhabitants said: ‘Anaximenes was mistaken; I am not God.’ I asked heaven, sun, moon and stars; they said: ‘Nor are we the God whom you seek.’ And I said to all these things: ‘Tell me of my God who you are not, tell me something about him.’ And with a great voice they cried out: ‘He made us’ (Ps. 99:3). And my question was the attention I gave them and their response was their beauty.

-Saint Augustine