Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica

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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.

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
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
[sacred] doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority, inasmuch as its principles are obtained by revelation: thus we ought to believe on the authority of those to whom the revelation has been made. Nor does this take away from the dignity of this doctrine, for although the argument from authority based on human reason is the weakest, yet the argument from authority based on divine revelation is the strongest.

Thomas Aquinas
The apostles and their successors are God's vicars in governing the Church which is built on faith and the sacraments of faith. Wherefore, just as they may not institute another Church, so neither may they deliver another faith, nor institute other sacraments.

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

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

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
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
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
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
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
It is written: "Wizards thou shalt not suffer to live" (Ex. 22:18); and: "In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land" (Ps. 100:8)....

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
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.

Thomas Aquinas
Eternity is called whole, not because it has parts, but because it is lacking in nothing.

Thomas Aquinas
What can be accomplished by a few principles is not effected by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle, which is nature, and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle, which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God's existence.

Thomas Aquinas
For in order that man may do well, whether in the works of the active life, or in those of the contemplative life, he needs the fellowship of friends.

Thomas Aquinas
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.

Thomas Aquinas
The custom of the Church has very great authority and ought to be jealously observed in all things.

Thomas Aquinas
Now the object of the will, i. e., of man's appetite, is the universal good... Hence it is evident that nothing can lull the human will but the universal good. This is to be found, not in any creature, but in God alone; because every creature has goodness by participation. Thus God alone can satisfy the will of a human being.

Thomas Aquinas
Just as it is better to illuminate than merely to shine, so to pass on what one has contemplated is better than merely to contemplate.

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

Thomas Aquinas
Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a prime mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.

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.

Thomas Aquinas
It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another's property in a case of extreme need: because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need

Thomas Aquinas
If all evil were prevented, much good would be absent from the universe. A lion would cease to live, if there were no slaying of animals; and there would be no patience of martyrs if there were no tyrannical persecution.

Thomas Aquinas
Beauty adds to goodness a relation to the cognitive faculty: so that "good" means that which simply pleases the appetite; while the "beautiful" is something pleasant to apprehend.

Thomas Aquinas