Thomas Aquinas Quotes

144 Sourced Quotes

Future contingents cannot be certain to us, because we know them as such. They can be certain only to God whose understanding is in eternity above time. Just as a man going along a road does not see those who come after him; but the man who sees the whole road from a height sees all those who are going along the road at the same time.

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.

Thomas Aquinas
We should love others truly, for their own sakes rather than our own.

Thomas Aquinas
Baptism is the Sacrament of Faith. Now, dead faith does not suffice for salvation...Therefore, the Sacrament of Baptism cannot give salvation to a man whose will... expels the form of faith.

Thomas Aquinas
Anger and the like are attributed to God on account of a similitude of effect. Thus, because to punish is properly the act of an angry man, God's punishment is metaphorically spoken of as His anger.

Thomas Aquinas
Baptism is not to be conferred on a man who is unwilling to give up his other sins, so neither should Baptism be given to one who is unwilling to renounce his unbelief. Nevertheless, each of them receives the Sacrament if it is conferred on him, although not unto salvation.

Thomas Aquinas
It must be understood that prime matter, and form as well, is neither generated nor corrupted, because every generation is from something to something. Now that from which generation proceeds is matter, and that to which it proceeds is form. So that, if matter or form were generated, there would be a matter for matter and a form for form, endlessly. Whence, there is generation only of the composite, properly speaking.

Thomas Aquinas
To restore man, who had been laid low by sin, to the heights of divine glory, the Word of the eternal Father, though containing all things within His immensity, willed to become small. This He did not by putting aside His greatness but by taking to Himself our littleness.

Thomas Aquinas
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.

Thomas Aquinas
Mistakes are made on two counts: an argument is either based on error or incorrectly developed.

Thomas Aquinas
God's precepts are light to the loving, heavy to the fearful.

Thomas Aquinas
But man is freer than all the animals, on account of his free-will, with which he is endowed above all other animals.

Thomas Aquinas
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.

Thomas Aquinas
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.

Thomas Aquinas
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.

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.

Thomas Aquinas
There is, therefore, a more perfect intellectual life in the angels. In them the intellect does not proceed to self-knowledge from anything exterior, but knows itself through itself....

Thomas Aquinas
Law has the power to compel: indeed, the ability to enforce is a condition of the ability to command.

Thomas Aquinas
It seems that God does not exist; because if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the word "God" means that He is infinite goodness. If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist.

Thomas Aquinas
Gods are called many by the error of some who worshipped many deities, thinking as they did the planets and other stars were gods, and also the separate parts of the world.

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" (Jn 3:5)

Thomas Aquinas
See to whom Jesus is drawing near, three kinds of people: to those who make peace with him, to those who are devoted to God, and to those who are kind to their neighbors.

Thomas Aquinas
It would seem that zeal is not an effect of love. For zeal is a beginning of contention.

Thomas Aquinas
Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.

Thomas Aquinas
The human race was in need of salvation because of the perversity of sin. For when people who are ill are cured from their illness, they are called "saved." Therefore, the Lord says: "Your faith has saved you.

Thomas Aquinas
A scrap of knowledge about sublime things is worth more than any amount about trivialities.

Thomas Aquinas
If a thing can be done adequately by means of one, it is superfluous to do it by means of several; for we observe that nature does not employ two instruments [if] one suffices.

Thomas Aquinas
When the devil is called the god of this world, it is not because he made it, but because we serve him with our worldliness.

Thomas Aquinas
God is not related to creatures as though belonging to a different "genus," but as transcending every "genus," and as the principle of all "genera.

Thomas Aquinas
Charity is not a potency of the soul, because if it were it would be natural. Nor is it a passion, because it is not in a sensitive potency in which are all passions. Nor is it a habit, because a habit is removed with difficulty; charity, however, is easily lost through one act of mortal sin. Therefore charity is not something created in the soul.

Thomas Aquinas