Quotes by Thomas Aquinas

Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.

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

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

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.

Moral science is better occupied when treating of friendship than of justice.

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.

Happiness is secured through virtue it is a good attained by mans own will.

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

Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine.

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

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.

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.

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.

Wonder is the desire for knowledge.

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.

We cant have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing then afterwards we may be led on to master the evidence for ourselves.

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

Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church.

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

“A song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.”