Thomas Aquinas Quotes
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If forgers and malefactors are put to death by the secular power, there is much more reason for excommunicating and even putting to death one convicted of heresy.
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What can be accomplished by a few principles is not effected by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle, which is nature, and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle, which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God's existence.
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There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.
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A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational.
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Now this relaxation of the mind from work consists on playful words or deeds. Therefore it becomes a wise and virtuous man to have recourse to such things at times.
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Sacred Scripture, since it has no science above itself, can dispute with one who denies its principles only if the opponent admits some at least of the truths obtained through divine revelation; thus we can argue with heretics from texts in Holy Writ, and against those who deny one article of faith we can argue from another. If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections - if he has any - against faith.
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Clearly the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the Church teaches.
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It is appropriate that the Body and Blood of Christ be truly present in this Sacrament because of the perfection of the New Covenant. The sacrifices of the Old Covenant contained the true sacrifice of Christ's Passion only in symbol....Therefore it was necessary that the sacrifice of the New Covenant, instituted by Christ, have something more, namely, that it contain Christ Himself who has suffered and contain Him not only in symbol but in reality.
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Better to illuminate than merely to shine; to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.
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Eternity is called whole, not because it has parts, but because it is lacking in nothing.
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Whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance.
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Charity, by which God and neighbor are loved, is the most perfect friendship.
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That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell.
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Pray thee, spare, thyself at times: for it becomes a wise man sometimes to relax the high pressure of his attention to work.
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The Angel's bread is made the Bread of man today.
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He who does not embrace the teaching of the Church does not have the habit of faith.
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An angel can illumine the thought and mind of man by strengthening the power of vision and by bringing within his reach some truth which the angel himself contemplates.
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It is possible to demonstrate God's existence, although not a priori, yet a posteriori from some work of His more surely known to us.
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The highest perfection of human life consists in the mind of man being detached from care, for the sake of God.
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To convert somebody go and take them by the hand and guide them.
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Baptism is the door of the spiritual life and the gateway to the sacraments.
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Justice is in subjects as well as in rulers.
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The same fire" (which he decides to be material) " torments the damned in hell and the just in purgatory...The least pain in purgatory exceeds the greatest in this life.
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Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them.