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Nothing created has ever been able to fill the heart of man. God alone can fill it infinitely.
Thomas Aquinas -
There being an imminent danger for the faith, prelates must be questioned, even publicly, by their subjects.
Thomas Aquinas
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It is a sin directly against one's neighbour, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them.
Thomas Aquinas -
The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in His divinity, assumed our nature, so that He, made man, might make men gods.
Thomas Aquinas -
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
Thomas Aquinas -
If you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.
Thomas Aquinas -
Rarely affirm, seldom deny, always distinguish.
Thomas Aquinas -
As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power.
Thomas Aquinas
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The greatness of the human being consists in this: that it is capable of the universe.
Thomas Aquinas -
Wonder admiratio astonishment, marvel is a kind of desire for knowledge. The situation arises when one sees an effect and does not know its cause, or when the cause of the particular effect is one that exceeds his power of understanding. Hence, wonder is a cause of pleasure insofar as there is annexed the hope of attaining understanding of that which one wants to know. ... For desire is especially aroused by the awareness of ignorance, and consequently a man takes the greatest pleasure in those things which he discovers for himself or learns from the ground up.
Thomas Aquinas -
To disparage the dictate of reason is equivalent to contemning the command of God.
Thomas Aquinas -
Peace is the work of justice indirectly, in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace; but it is the work of charity (love) directly, since charity, according to its very notion, causes peace.
Thomas Aquinas -
There would not be a perfect likeness of God in the universe if all things were of one grade of being.
Thomas Aquinas -
A scrap of knowledge about sublime things is worth more than any amount about trivialities.
Thomas Aquinas
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If a thing can be done adequately by means of one, it is superfluous to do it by means of several; for we observe that nature does not employ two instruments if one suffices.
Thomas Aquinas -
Baptism is not to be conferred on a man who is unwilling to give up his other sins, so neither should Baptism be given to one who is unwilling to renounce his unbelief. Nevertheless, each of them receives the Sacrament if it is conferred on him, although not unto salvation.
Thomas Aquinas -
Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.
Thomas Aquinas -
It is necessary for the perfection of human society that there should be men who devote their lives to contemplation.
Thomas Aquinas -
There is, therefore, a more perfect intellectual life in the angels. In them the intellect does not proceed to self-knowledge from anything exterior, but knows itself through itself.
Thomas Aquinas -
It is clear that he does not pray, who, far from uplifting himself to God, requires that God shall lower Himself to him, and who resorts to prayer not to stir the man in us to will what God wills, but only to persuade God to will what the man in us wills.
Thomas Aquinas
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Just as in one man there is one soul and one body, yet many members; even so the Catholic Church is one body, having many members. The soul that quickens this body is the Holy Spirit; and therefore in the Creed after confessing our belief in the Holy Spirit, we are bid to believe in the Holy Catholic Church.
Thomas Aquinas -
Suppose a person entering a house were to feel heat on the porch, and going further, were to feel the heat increasing, the more they penetrated within. Doubtless, such a person would believe there was a fire in the house, even though they did not see the fire that must be causing all this heat. A similar thing will happen to anyone who considers this world in detail: one will observe that all things are arranged according to their degrees of beauty and excellence, and that the nearer they are to God, the more beautiful and better they are.
Thomas Aquinas -
It must be understood that prime matter, and form as well, is neither generated nor corrupted, because every generation is from something to something. Now that from which generation proceeds is matter, and that to which it proceeds is form. So that, if matter or form were generated, there would be a matter for matter and a form for form, endlessly. Whence, there is generation only of the composite, properly speaking.
Thomas Aquinas -
Being born he have himself as our Companion, Eating with us he gave himself as Food, Dying He became our Ransom, Reigning he gives himself as our Reward.
Thomas Aquinas