Thomas Aquinas Quotes
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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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Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them.
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To convert somebody go and take them by the hand and guide them.
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I cannot go on.... All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.
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We set forth our petitions before God, not in order to make known to Him our needs and desires, but rather so that we ourselves may realize that in these things it is necessary to turn to God for help.
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Good and evil are essential differences of the act of the will. For good and evil pertain essentially to the will; just as truth and falsehood pertain to the reason, the act of which is distinguished essentially by the difference of truth and falsehood (according as we say that an opinion is true or false.) Consequently, good and evil volition are acts differing in species.
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Distinctions drawn by the mind are not necessarily equivalent to distinctions in reality.
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A man should remind himself that an object of faith is not scientifically demonstrable, lest presuming to demonstrate what is of faith, he should produce inconclusive reasons and offer occasion for unbelievers to scoff at a faith based on such ground.
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Devotion is a certain act of the will by which man gives himself promptly to divine service.
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If... the motion of the earth were circular, it would be violent and contrary to nature, and could not be eternal, since ... nothing violent is eternal .... It follows, therefore, that the earth is not moved with a circular motion.
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How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God.
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Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.
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Law has the power to compel: indeed, the ability to enforce is a condition of the ability to command.
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Nothing which implies contradiction falls under the omnipotence of God.
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The minister to whom confession is made is the delegate of Christ, Who is the Judge of the living and the dead.
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The meaning of what is said is according to the motive for saying it: because things are not subject to speech, but speech to things. Therefore we should take account of the motive of the lawgiver, rather than of his very words.
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The Angel's bread is made the Bread of man today.
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Every cell in us worships God.
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All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.
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He who achieves power by violence does not truly become lord or master.
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To love is to will the good of the other.
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As the saints will rejoice in all goods, so will the damned grieve for all goods.
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There must be must be a first mover existing above all – and this we call God.
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The celestial bodies are the cause of all that takes place in the sublunar world.