Thomas Aquinas Quotes

It has become the fashion to talk about Mysticism, even to pose as Mystics, and — need it be said? — those who talk the most on such subjects are those who know the least.

The truth can be perceived only through thinking, as is proven by Augustine.

It is better to illuminate than merely to shine.
Maius est illuminare quam lucere solum.

knowledge depends on the mode of the knower; for what is known is in the knower according to the measure of his mode

Friendship makes you feel as one with your friend.

The splendor of a soul in grace is so seductive that it surpasses the beauty of all created things.

Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which set bounds to the passions

Man cannot live without joy. That is why one deprived of spiritual joys goes over to carnal pleasures.

justice without mercy is cruelty; mercy without justice is dissolution.

It is absurd and a detestable shame, that we should suffer those traditions to be changed which we have received from the fathers of old.

our manner of knowing is so weak that no philosopher could perfectly investigate the nature of even one little fly.

Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious

[I]t is to be borne in mind, in regard to the philosophical sciences, that the inferior sciences neither prove their principles nor dispute with those who deny them, but leave this to a higher science; whereas the highest of them, viz. metaphysics, can dispute with one who denies its principles, if only the opponent will make some concession; but if he concede nothing, it can have no dispute with him, though it can answer his objections. Hence Sacred Scripture, since it has no science above itself, can dispute with one who denies its principles only if the opponent admits some at least of the truths obtained through divine revelation; thus we can argue with heretics from texts in Holy Writ, and against those who deny one article of faith, we can argue from another. If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections — if he has any — against faith. Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated, it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations, but are difficulties that can be answered.

Even though the natural light of the human mind is inadequate to make known what is revealed by faith, nevertheless what is divinely taught to us by faith cannot be contrary to what we are endowed with by nature. One or the other would have to be false, and since we have both of them from God, he would be the cause of our error, which is impossible.

God loves his creatures, and he loves each one the more, the more it shares his own goodness, which is the first and primary object of his love. Therefore he wants the desires of his rational creatures to be fulfilled because they share most perfectly of all creatures the goodness of god.

And his will is an accomplisher of things because he is the cause of things by his will. So it belongs to the divine goodness to fulfill the desires of rational creatures which are put to him in prayer.