Thomas Aquinas quotes

Born
1225 Roccasecca, Kingdom of Sicily.

Died
7 March 1274.

Occupation
Catholic priest.

Thomas Aquinas was an Italian Dominican friar, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church.

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

The things that we love tell us what we are.
– Thomas Aquinas

To convert somebody go and take them by the hand and guide them.
– Thomas Aquinas

There is but one Church in which men find salvation, just as outside the ark of Noah it was not possible for anyone to be saved.
– Thomas Aquinas

How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God.
– Thomas Aquinas

Human salvation demands the divine disclosure of truths surpassing reason.
– Thomas Aquinas

It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes.
– Thomas Aquinas

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
– Thomas Aquinas

Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man’s own will.
– Thomas Aquinas

Love is a binding force, by which another is joined to me and cherished by myself.
– Thomas Aquinas

Now this relaxation of the mind from work consists on playful words or deeds. Therefore it becomes a wise and virtuous man to have recourse to such things at times.
– Thomas Aquinas

Beware of the person of one book.
– Thomas Aquinas

Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand.
– Thomas Aquinas

Most men seem to live according to sense rather than reason.
– Thomas Aquinas

Law; an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community.
– Thomas Aquinas

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.
– Thomas Aquinas

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

Man should not consider his material possession his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need.
– Thomas Aquinas

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

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

A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational.
– Thomas Aquinas

If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.
– Thomas Aquinas

Well-ordered self-love is right and natural.
– Thomas Aquinas

Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.
– Thomas Aquinas

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

Distinctions drawn by the mind are not necessarily equivalent to distinctions in reality.
– 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

To live well is to work well, to show a good activity.
– Thomas Aquinas

God should not be called an individual substance, since the principal of individuation is matter.
– Thomas Aquinas

There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.
– Thomas Aquinas

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

Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.
– Thomas Aquinas

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.
– Thomas Aquinas

Because of the diverse conditions of humans, it happens that some acts are virtuous to some people, as appropriate and suitable to them, while the same acts are immoral for others, as inappropriate to them.
– Thomas Aquinas

All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said has its origin in the Spirit.
– Thomas Aquinas

Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious.
– Thomas Aquinas

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

Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good.
– Thomas Aquinas

Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.
– Thomas Aquinas

We can’t have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing; then afterwards we may be led on to master the evidence for ourselves.
– Thomas Aquinas

All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.
– Thomas Aquinas

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.
– Thomas Aquinas

Wonder is the desire for knowledge.
– Thomas Aquinas

Reason in man is rather like God in the world.
– Thomas Aquinas