Laudator Temporis Acti

Augustine, Sermons 17.1 (Patrologia Latina, vol. XXXVIII, col. 124; tr. Edmund Hill):

He's not silent. What we have to do is hear him—but with the ears of the heart, because it's easy to hear with these ones of gristle. We ought to hear with the kind of ears the master himself was looking for when he said Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear (Mt 13:9). When he said that, were there any standing in front of him without a pair of ears on their head? They all had ears, and only a few of them had ears. They didn't all have ears to hear, that is, to obey, to take to heart.

non silet. opus est ut nos audiamus, sed aure cordis, nam facile est audire carnis. illis auribus audire debemus, quas quaerebat magister ipse cum diceret: qui habet aures audiendi audiat (Matth. XIII, 9). quis enim ante illum, quando ista dicebat, sine auribus carnis stabat? omnes aures habebant, et pauci habebant. non omnes habebant aures audiendi, hoc est, obediendi.