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Law has the power to compel: indeed, the ability to enforce is a condition of the ability to command.
Thomas Aquinas -
Devotion is a certain act of the will by which man gives himself promptly to divine service.
Thomas Aquinas
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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.
Thomas Aquinas -
All men are equal in nature, and also in original sin. It is in the merits and demerits of their actions that they differ.
Thomas Aquinas -
Distinctions drawn by the mind are not necessarily equivalent to distinctions in reality.
Thomas Aquinas -
As the saints will rejoice in all goods, so will the damned grieve for all goods.
Thomas Aquinas -
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.
Thomas Aquinas -
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.
Thomas Aquinas
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I receive Thee ransom of my soul. For love of Thee have I studied and kept vigil toiled preached and taught.
Thomas Aquinas -
How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God.
Thomas Aquinas -
Natural inclinations are present in things from God, who moves all things. So it is impossible for the natural inclinations of a species to be toward evil in itself. But there is in all perfect animals a natural inclination toward carnal union. Therefore it is impossible for carnal union to be evil in itself.
Thomas Aquinas -
The soul, which is the first principle of life, is not a body, but the act of a body; just as heat, which is the principle of calefaction, is not a body, but an act of a body.
Thomas Aquinas -
Every cell in us worships God.
Thomas Aquinas -
Justice is in subjects as well as in rulers.
Thomas Aquinas
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Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.
Thomas Aquinas -
Do not wish to jump immediately from the streams to the sea, because one has to go through easier things to the more difficult.
Thomas Aquinas -
He who achieves power by violence does not truly become lord or master.
Thomas Aquinas -
Humility is the mark of a genuine disciple.
Thomas Aquinas -
A person is disposed to an act of choice by an angel ... in two ways. Sometimes, a man's understanding is enlightened by an angel to know what is good, but it is not instructed as to the reason why ... But sometimes he is instructed by angelic illumination, both that this act is good and as to the reason why it is good.
Thomas Aquinas -
He who does not embrace the teaching of the Church does not have the habit of faith.
Thomas Aquinas
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The proper task of the Savior is that he is a savior; indeed, for this he came into the world: to seek and save what was lost.
Thomas Aquinas -
All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.
Thomas Aquinas -
Reasoning is compared to understanding as movement is to rest, or acquisition to possession.... Since movement always proceeds from something immovable, and ends in something at rest, hence it is that human reasoning, in the order of inquiry and discovery, proceeds from certain things absolutely understood--namely, the first principles; and, again, in the order of judgment, returns by analysis to first principles, in the light of which it examines what it has found. Now it is clear that rest and movement are not to be referred to different powers, but to one and the same.
Thomas Aquinas -
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.
Thomas Aquinas