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Quotes by Saint Thomas Aquinas

A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational.
– Saint 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.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said has its origin in the Spirit.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
And therefore the Philosopher [Aristotle] says in Metaphysics VI that good and evil, which are objects of the will, are in things, but truth and error, which are objects of the intellect, are in the mind.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Because of the diverse conditions of humans, it happens that some acts are virtuous to some people, as appropriate and suitable to them, while the same acts are immoral for others, as inappropriate to them.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Beware of the person of one book.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Beware the man of one book.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Clearly the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the Church teaches.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence... For perfect happiness the intellect needs to reach the very Essence of the First Cause. And thus it will have its perfection through union with God... in which alone man's happiness consists, as stated above.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
For loving draws us more to things than knowing does, since good is found by going to the thing, whereas the true is found when the thing comes to us.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man's own will.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
How is it they live in such harmony the billions of stars - when most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their minds about someone they know.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Human salvation demands the divine disclosure of truths surpassing reason.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
If forgers and malefactors are put to death by the secular power, there is much more reason for excommunicating and even putting to death one convicted of heresy.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
If someone knows from experience that daily Communion increases fervor without lessening reverence, then let him go every day. But if someone finds that reverence is lessened and devotion not much increased, then let him sometimes abstain, so as to draw near afterwards with better dispositions.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
If, then, you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ, because He Himself is the way.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
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.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
In the life of the body a man is sometimes sick, and unless he takes medicine, he will die. Even so in the spiritual life a man is sick on account of sin. For that reason he needs medicine so that he may be restored to health; and this grace is bestowed in the Sacrament of Penance.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
It is clear that he does not pray, who, far from uplifting himself to God, requires that God shall lower Himself to him, and who resorts to prayer not to stir the man in us to will what God wills, but only to persuade God to will what the man in us wills.
– Saint 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.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Just as a man cannot live in the flesh unless he is born in the flesh, even so a man cannot have the spiritual life of grace unless he is born again spiritually. This regeneration is effected by Baptism: Unless a man is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Just as in one man there is one soul and one body, yet many members; even so the Catholic Church is one body, having many members. The soul that quickens this body is the Holy Spirit; and therefore in the Creed after confessing our belief in the Holy Spirit, we are bid to believe in the Holy Catholic Church.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Justice is a certain rectitude of mind whereby a man does what he ought to do in the circumstances confronting him.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Law; an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Man should not consider his material possession his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Moral science is better occupied when treating of friendship than of justice.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Most men seem to live according to sense rather than reason.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Nor has the Church failed before the assaults of demons: for she is like a tower of refuge to all who fight against the Devil.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Now among all passions inflicted from without, death holds the first place, just as sexual concupiscences are chief among internal passions. Consequently, when a man conquers death and things directed to death, his is a most perfect victory.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Peace is the work of justice indirectly, in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace; but it is the work of charity (love) directly, since charity, according to its very notion, causes peace.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Reason in man is rather like God in the world.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Sure, for all our blindness; secure, for all our helplessness; strong, for all our weakness; gaily in love, for all the pressures on our hearts.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
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.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
The Church has ever proved indestructible. Her persecutors have failed to destroy her; in fact, it was during times of persecution that the Church grew more and more; while the persecutors themselves, and those whom the Church would destroy, are the very ones who came to nothing.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
The minister to whom confession is made is the delegate of Christ, Who is the Judge of the living and the dead.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
The principal act of courage is to endure and withstand dangers doggedly rather than to attack them.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
The things that we love tell us what we are.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
There are wars where no one marches with a flag, thought that does not keep casualties from mounting. Our hearts irrigate this earth. We are fields before each other.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
There is but one Church in which men find salvation, just as outside the ark of Noah it was not possible for anyone to be saved.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
This Blood that but one drop of has the power to win. All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
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 more apt for contemplation.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Three conditions are necessary for Penance: contrition, which is sorrow for sin, together with a purpose of amendment; confession of sins without any omission; and satisfaction by means of good works.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
To convert somebody go and take them by the hand and guide them.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
To live well is to work well, to show a good activity.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
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.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Well-ordered self-love is right and natural.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Whatever is received is received according to the nature of the recipient.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Wonder is the desire for knowledge.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
The knowledge of God is the cause of things. For the knowledge of God is to all creatures what the knowledge of the artificer is to things made by his art.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Pray thee, spare, thyself at times: for it becomes a wise man sometimes to relax the high pressure of his attention to work.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas
Now this relaxation of the mind from work consists on playful words or deeds. Therefore it becomes a wise and virtuous man to have recourse to such things at times.
– Saint Thomas Aquinas