Thomas Aquinas Quotes

“Charity is the form, mover, mother and root of all the virtues.”

“No man truly has joy unless he lives in love.”

“Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them.”

“If there were some solitary or feral man, the passions of the soul would be sufficient for him; by them he would be conformed to things in order that he might have knowledge of them. But because man is naturally political and social, there is need for one man to make his conceptions known to others, which is done with speech. So significant speech was needed if men were to live together. Which is why those of different tongues do not easily live together.”

“To love is to will the good of the other.”

“Of all the pursuits open to men, the search for wisdom is most perfect, more sublime, more profitable, and more full of joy.”

“There is no leisure about politics.”

“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.”

“For creation is not a change, but that dependence of the created existence on the principle from which it is instituted, and thus is of the genus of relation; whence nothing prohibits itbeing in the created as in the subject. Creation is thus said to be a kind of change, according to the way of understanding, insofar as our intellect accepts one and the same thing as notexisting before and afterwards existing.”

“Love follows knowledge.”

“He who is drawn to something desirable does not desire to have it as a thought but as a thing.”

“It is a sin directly against one's neighbour, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them.”

“All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.”

“Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man's own will.”

“All men are equal in nature, and also in original sin. It is in the merits and demerits of their actions that they differ.”

“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.”

“The greatness of the human being consists in this:that it is capable of the universe.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Better to illuminate than merely to shine.”

“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.”

“Beware of the person of one book.”

“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.”

“An act of love always tends towards two things; to the good that one wills, and to the person for whom one wills it.”

“You change people by delight, by pleasure.”

“Love is a binding force, by which another is joined to me and cherished by myself.”

“The last end of every maker, as such, is himself, for what we make we use for our own sake; and if at any time a man make a thing for the sake of something else, it is referred to his own good, whether his use, his pleasure, or his virtue.”

“Characteristics which define beauty are wholeness, harmony and radiance.”

“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.”

“We should love others truly, for their own sakes rather than our own.”

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

“A scrap of knowledge about sublime things is worth more than any amount about trivialities.”

“Justice is in subjects as well as in rulers.”

“The human mind may perceive truth only through thinking, as is clear from Augustine.”

“There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.”

“Wonder was the motive that led people to philosophy ... wonder is a kind of desire in knowledge. It is the cause of delight because it carries with it the hope of discovery.”

“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.”

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

“Rarely affirm, seldom deny, always distinguish.”

“There can be no joy in living without joy in work.”

“Pain itself can be pleasurable accidentally in so far as it is accompanied by wonder, as in stage-plays; or in so far as it recalls a beloved object to one's memory, and makes one feel one's love for the thing, whose absence gives us pain. Consequently, since love is pleasant, both pain and whatever else results from love, in so far as they remind us of our love, are pleasant.”

“The celestial bodies are the cause of all that takes place in the sublunar world.”

“Do not wish to jump immediately from the streams to the sea, because one has to go through easier things to the more difficult.”

“To convert somebody go and take them by the hand and guide them.”

“Justice is a certain rectitude of mind whereby a man does what he ought to do in the circumstances confronting him.”

“If you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.”

“Charity is love; not all love is charity.”

“There is nothing in your mind which wasn't experienced before hand.”

“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.”

“Without the suitable conditions life could not exist. But both life and its conditions set forth the operations of inscrutable Power. We know not its origin; we know not its end. And the presumption, if not the degradation, rests with those who place upon the throne of the universe a magnified image of themselves, and make its doings a mere colossal imitation of their own. Wonder was the motive that led people to philosophy ... wonder is a kind of desire in knowledge. It is the cause of delight because it carries with it the hope of discovery.”