Thomas Aquinas Quotes
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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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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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A man's heart is right when he wills what God wills.
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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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Humility is the mark of a genuine disciple.
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As the saints will rejoice in all goods, so will the damned grieve for all goods.
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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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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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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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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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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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There must be must be a first mover existing above all – and this we call God.
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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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Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.
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To love is to will the good of the other.
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Every cell in us worships God.
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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.
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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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Man can sin against nature in two ways. First, when he sins against his specific rational nature, acting contrary to reason. In this sense, we can say that every sin is a sin against man's nature, because it is against man's right reason.
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We are like children, who stand in need of masters to enlighten us and direct us; God has provided for this, by appointing his angels to be our teachers and guides.
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The celestial bodies are the cause of all that takes place in the sublunar world.
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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.
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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.