Welcome to our collection of Saint Thomas Aquinas Quotes! Saint thomas aquinas (1225-1274) was a renowned italian theologian, philosopher, and doctor of the church. He is best known for his synthesis of aristotelian philosophy and catholic doctrine, as well as for his many writings on topics ranging from theology and philosophy to science and law. His prolific works have earned him a lasting legacy as one of the greatest thinkers in the history of christianity.
Thomas Aquinas Quotes about Faith and Hope
🔹 “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Because we cannot know what God is, but only what He is not, we cannot consider how He is but only how He is not.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand.” – 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
🔹 “If, then, you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ because He Himself is the way.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “It is necessary to posit something which is necessary of itself, and has no cause of its necessity outside of itself but is the cause of necessity in other things. And all people call this thing God.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Reason in man is rather like God in the world.” – 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
🔹 “The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.” – 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
Funny Thomas Aquinas quotes
🔹 “Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Love follows knowledge.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Love is a binding force, by which another is joined to me and cherished by myself.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Love must precede hatred, and nothing is hated save through being contrary to a suitable thing which is loved. And hence it is that every hatred is caused by love.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Moral science is better occupied when treating of friendship than of justice.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “The happy man in this life needs friends.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “The study of truth requires a considerable effort – which is why few are willing to undertake it out of love of knowledge.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.” – Thomas Aquinas
“Well-ordered self-love is right and natural.” – Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas quotes about the happy man in this life needs friends
🔹 “A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man’s own will.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “The things that we love tell us what we are.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “We can’t have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing; then afterward we may be led on to master the evidence for ourselves.” – Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas quotes for Instagram
🔹 “By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Every judgment of conscience, be it right or wrong, be it about things evil in themselves or morally indifferent, is obligatory, in such wise that he who acts against his conscience always sins.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Further, nothing, except sin, is contrary to an act of virtue. But war is contrary to peace. Therefore war is always a sin.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “If forgers and malefactors are put to death by the secular power, there is much more reason for excommunicating and even putting to death one convicted of heresy.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign. Secondly, a just cause. Thirdly, a rightful intention.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Justice is a certain rectitude of mind whereby a man does what he ought to do in the circumstances confronting him.” – 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
🔹 “Law; an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has the care of the community.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “While injustice is the worst of sins, despair is the most dangerous; because when you are in despair you care neither about yourself nor about others.” – Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas Quotes about Virtues and Knowledge
🔹 “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
“Distinctions drawn by the mind are not necessarily equivalent to distinctions in reality.” – 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
🔹 “Most men seem to live according to sense rather than reason.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “The principal act of courage is to endure and withstand dangers doggedly rather than to attack them.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “To live well is to work well, to show good activity.” – Thomas Aquinas
🔹 “Whatever is received is received according to the nature of the recipient.” – Thomas Aquinas
Famous Thomas Aquinas Quotes
🔹 “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.”
🔹 “If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.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.
🔹 “The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth.To pretend angels do not exist because they are invisible is to believe we never sleep because we don’t see ourselves sleeping.
🔹 “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.
🔹 “We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it.Believing is an act of the intellect, assenting to the divine truth, by command of the will, moved by God, through grace.
Inspirational Thomas Aquinas Quotes About Life and Happiness
🔹 “I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it. I would hope to act with compassion without thinking of personal gain.
🔹 “Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.
🔹 “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.
🔹 “Pray thee, spare, thyself at times: for it becomes a wise man sometimes to relax the high pressure of his attention to work.
🔹 “Rarely affirm, seldom deny, always distinguish.
🔹 “Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine.
🔹 “The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces.
🔹 “To live well is to work well, to show a good activity.
Thomas Aquinas Quotes on Truth and Knowledge
🔹 “All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said has its origin in the Spirit.
🔹 “Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.
🔹 “Better to illuminate than merely to shine to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.
🔹 “The study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is.
🔹 “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.
🔹 “Wonder is the desire of knowledge.
Wise Thomas Aquinas Quotes that will Make You Think
🔹 “Every judgement of conscience, be it right or wrong, be it about things evil in themselves or morally indifferent, is obligatory, in such wise that he who acts against his conscience always sins.”
🔹 “Beware the man of a single book.
🔹 “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.
🔹 “Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good.
🔹 “How is it they live in such harmony, the billions of stars, when most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their minds?
🔹 “It is necessary for the perfection of human society that there should be men who devote their lives to contemplation.
🔹 “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 Quotes on Peace and Unity
🔹 “Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church.
🔹 “How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God.
Quotes By Thomas Aquinas On God
🔹 “A man does not always choose what his guardian angel intends.”
🔹 “All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said has its origin in the Spirit.”
🔹 “Clearly the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the Church teaches.”
🔹 “God should not be called an individual substance since the principle of individuation is matter.”
🔹 “Human salvation demands the divine disclosure of truths surpassing reason.”
🔹 “If, then, you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ, because he Himself is the way.”
🔹 “It must be said that charity can, in no way, exist along with mortal sins.”
🔹 “Nothing created has ever been able to fill the heart of man. God alone can fill it infinitely.”
🔹 “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.”
🔹 “To be united to God in unity of person was not fitting to human flesh, according to its natural endowments, since it was above his dignity; nevertheless, it was fitting that God, by reason of his infinite goodness, should unite it to himself for salvation.”
🔹 “To convert somebody, go and take them by the hand and guide them.”
🔹 “We can open our hearts to God, but only with Divine help.”
Thomas Aquinas Quotes About Love
🔹 “For loving draws us more to things than knowing does, since good is found by going to the thing, whereas the true is found when the thing comes to us.”
“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 in reality. Who first was the beginning now becomes the end of motion.”
🔹 “No man truly has joy unless he lives in love.”
🔹 “To love is to will the good of the other.”
🔹 “We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have laboured in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it.”
Thomas Aquinas Quotes About Politics
🔹 “How is it they live in such harmony the billions of stars – when most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their minds about someone they know.”
🔹 “Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.”
🔹 “Peace is the work of justice indirectly, in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace; but it is the work of charity (love) directly, since charity, according to its very notion, causes peace.”
Verdict
Saint Thomas Aquinas Quotes provide timeless wisdom and insight into the nature of the world and our place in it. His words are still relevant today, reminding us of the importance of faith, wisdom, and morality. He serves as an example of true piety and devotion, and his words can help us find our own paths in life.