St. Paul writes “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Galatians 5:14). Only if you know how to love yourself, will I entrust your neighbor to you to be loved. If you don’t yet know how to love yourself, I’m afraid you are only too likely to cheat your neighbor of love as you are cheating yourself. If you love living an immoral life, you do not love yourself. If you hate your soul by loving only your flesh, both will rise together at the end of time but only to be tormented.

—Augustine, Sermon 128.5