Quotes By Thomas Aquinas

Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.

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.

Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.

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.

The principal act of courage is to endure and withstand dangers doggedly rather than to attack them.

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.

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.

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.

Whatever is received is received according to the nature of the recipient.

Human salvation demands the divine disclosure of truths surpassing reason.

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.

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.

If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.

All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.

Law is nothing other than a certain ordinance of reason for the common good, promulgated by the person who has the care of the community.

Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good.

Well-ordered self-love is right and natural.

If, then, you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ, because He Himself is the way.

There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.

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.

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.

How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God.

Wonder is the desire for knowledge.

Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them.

To live well is to work well, to show a good activity.

Beware of the person of one book.

Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious.

Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.

By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.

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.