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The Final Word: Saint Augustine of Hippo
North African (Algerian) theologian, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church (354-450 AD); from The Rule of St. Augustine
 
To see a woman when you go out is not forbidden, but it is sin-ful to desire her or to wish her to desire you, for it is not by intense or passionate feeling alone but also by one’s gaze that lustful desires mutually arise. And do not say that your heart is pure if there is immodesty in your eye, because the unchaste eye is the anxious emissary of an impure heart. And when such hearts disclose their unchaste desires in a mutual gaze, even without saying a word, that is when chastity is suddenly driven out of their lives, even though their bodies remain unsullied by unchaste acts. For did not our Lord Himself tell us that even if we look at a woman to lust after her, we have already committed adultery in our hearts?