Thomas Aquinas Quotes
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All my words are but chaff next to the faith of a simple man.
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Theology is taught by God, teaches God, and leads to God.
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Give, expecting nothing there of.
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Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them.
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Man is closer to God according to his existence in grace than he is according to his existence in nature.
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Charity brings to life again those who are spiritually dead.
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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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Arrive at knowledge over small streamlets, and do not plunge immediately into the ocean, since progress must go from the easier to the more difficult.
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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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Love works in a circle, for the beloved moves the lover by stamping a likeness, and the lover then goes out to hold the beloved inreality. Who first was the beginning now becomes the end of motion.
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Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.
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It is unlawful to add anything to the words of Holy Scripture regarding the sense.
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Justice is in subjects as well as in rulers.
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He who achieves power by violence does not truly become lord or master.
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Thus Angels' Bread is made The Bread of man today: The Living Bread from Heaven With figures doth away: O wondrous gift indeed! The poor and lowly may Upon their Lord and Master feed.
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Law; an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community.
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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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If you seek patience, you will find no better example than the cross. Great patience occurs in two ways: either when one patiently suffers much, or when one suffers things which one is able to avoid and yet does not avoid. Christ endured much on the cross, and did so patiently, because when he suffered he did not threaten; he was led like a sheep to the slaughter and he did not open his mouth.
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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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Law has the power to compel: indeed, the ability to enforce is a condition of the ability to command.
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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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There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.
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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 celestial bodies are the cause of all that takes place in the sublunar world.