Thomas Aquinas Quotes
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Of all the pursuits open to men, the search for wisdom is most perfect, more sublime, more profitable, and more full of joy.
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Grace renders us like God and a partaker of the divine nature.
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Those who are more adapted to the active life can prepare themselves for contemplation in the practice of the active life, while those who are more adapted to the contemplative life can take upon themselves the works of the active life so as to become yet.
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This Blood that but one drop of has the power to win all the world forgiveness of its world of sin.
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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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The perfection of the effect demonstrates the perfection of the cause, for a greater power brings about a more perfect effect. But God is the most perfect agent. Therefore, things created by Him obtain perfection from Him. So, to detract from the perfection of creatures is to detract from the perfection of divine power.
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Fear is such a powerful emotion for humans that when we allow it to take us over, it drives compassion right out of our hearts.
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In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign... Secondly, a just cause... Thirdly... a rightful intention.
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Even as he would be guilty of falsehood who would, in the name of another person, proffer things that are not committed to him, so too does a man incur the guilt of falsehood who, on the part of the Church, gives worship to God contrary to the manner established by the Church or divine authority, and according to ecclesiastical custom.
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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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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.
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Pain itself can be pleasurable accidentally in so far as it is accompanied by wonder, as in stage – plays; or in so far as it recalls a beloved object to one's memory, and makes one feel one's love for the thing, whose absence gives us pain. Consequently, since love is pleasant, both pain and whatever else results from love, in so far as they remind us of our love, are pleasant.
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We can't have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing; then afterwards we may be led on to master the evidence for ourselves.
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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.
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If all the sins of the flesh are worthy of condemnation because by them man allows himself to be dominated by that which he has of the animal nature, much more deserving of condemnation are the sins against nature by which man degrades his own animal nature.
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The truth of the Christian faith surpasses the capacity of reason.
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By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.
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Grant me, O Lord my God, a mind to know you, a heart to seek you, wisdom to find you, conduct pleasing to you, faithful perseverance in waiting for you, and a hope of finally embracing you. Amen.
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Every truth without exception- and whoever may utter it- is from the Holy Spirit.
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Well-ordered self-love is right and natural.
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We ought to cherish the body. Our body's substance is not from an evil principle, as the Manicheans imagine, but from God. And therefore, we ought to cherish the body by the friendship of love, by which we love God.
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A song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.
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One aspect of neighbourly love is that we must not merely will our neighbours good, but actually work to bring it about.
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It is necessary to posit something which is necessary of itself, and has no cause of its necessity outside of itself but is the cause of necessity in other things. And all people call this thing God.