Thomas Aquinas Quotations | Page 4

There is within every soul a thirst for happiness and meaning.

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

Fear is such a powerful emotion for humans that when we allow it to take us over, it drives compassion right out of our hearts.

To love God is something greater than to know Him.

God is never angry for His sake, only for ours.

Whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance. So Ambrosius says, and it is also to be found in the Decretum Gratiani: The bread which you withhold belongs to the hungry: the clothing you shut away, to the naked: and the money you bury in the earth is the redemption and freedom of the penniless.

Grant me, O Lord my God, a mind to know you, a heart to seek you, wisdom to find you, conduct pleasing to you, faithful perseverance in waiting for you, and a hope of finally embracing you. Amen.

Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.

The soul is like an uninhabited world that comes to life only when God lays His head against us.

Suppose a person entering a house were to feel heat on the porch, and going further, were to feel the heat increasing, the more they penetrated within. Doubtless, such a person would believe there was a fire in the house, even though they did not see the fire that must be causing all this heat. A similar thing will happen to anyone who considers this world in detail: one will observe that all things are arranged according to their degrees of beauty and excellence, and that the nearer they are to God, the more beautiful and better they are.

Nothing created has ever been able to fill the heart of man. God alone can fill it infinitely.

The light of faith makes us see what we believe.

He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.

Angels transcend every religion, every philosophy, every creed. In fact Angels have no religion as we know it... Their existence precedes every religious system that has ever existed on Earth...

To pretend angels do not exist because they are invisible is to believe we never sleep because we don't see ourselves sleeping.

One aspect of neighbourly love is that we must not merely will our neighbours good, but actually work to bring it about.

The Cross to me is certain salvation. The Cross is that which I ever adore. The Cross of the Lord is with me. The Cross is my refuge.

In the life of the body a man is sometimes sick, and unless he takes medicine, he will die. Even so in the spiritual life a man is sick on account of sin. For that reason he needs medicine so that he may be restored to health; and this grace is bestowed in the Sacrament of Penance.

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.

Sing, my tongue, the Saviour's glory, Of His Flesh, the mystery sing; Of the Blood, all price exceeding, Shed by our Immortal King, Destined, for the world's redemption, From a noble Womb to spring.

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.

Man is closer to God according to his existence in grace than he is according to his existence in nature.

I cannot go on.... All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.

For just as the first general precepts of the law of nature are self-evident to one in possession of natural reason, and have no need of promulgation, so also that of believing in God is primary and self-evident to one who has faith: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is.

God himself would not permit evil in this world if good did not come of it for the benefit and harmony of the universe.

He who achieves power by violence does not truly become lord or master.

Because the divine goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, God produced many and diverse creatures, that what was wanting in one in the representation of the divine goodness might be supplied by another. For goodness, which in God is simple and uniform, in creatures is manifold and divided. Thus the whole universe together participates in the divine goodness more perfectly and represents it better than any single creature.

In the end, we know God as unknown.

There is no leisure about politics.

Far graver is it to corrupt the faith that is the life of the soul than to counterfeit the money that sustains temporal life.

It is only God who creates. Man merely rearranges.

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.

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.

If the motion of the earth were circular, it would be violent and contrary to nature, and could not be eternal, since nothing violent is eternal . It follows, therefore, that the earth is not moved with a circular motion.

Greed is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things,

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.