Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican theologian and his name originates from Italy and he was an Italian advocate of Natural theology. St. Thomas Aquinas was also Dominican priest who made considerable contributions to the field of philosophy, theology, and law.
He wrote within the philosophical school of scholasticism. Scholasticism is a school of philosophy that uses a critical organic method for metaphysical analysis. It is based on Aristotelian philosophy. His philosophy aimed to unify philosophy and religion with Thomism.
st. Thomas Aquinas quotes about faith and god
He believed in a unified God and nature. His most influential works are Questions on Truth and Summa Theologica. He has made several commentaries on Aristotle’s body of work and has composed eucharistic hymns. He invited speculation and reason in the pursuit of God. He belonged to the Roman catholic church.
- “There would not be a perfect likeness of God in the universe if all things were of one grade of being.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
2. “The world tempts us either by attaching us to it in prosperity, or by filling us with fear of adversity. But faith overcomes this in that we believe in a life to come better than this one, and hence we despise the riches of this world and we are not terrified in the face of adversity.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
3. “We ought to cherish the body. Our body’s substance is not from an evil principle, as the Manicheans imagine, but from God. And therefore, we ought to cherish the body by the friendship of love, by which we love God.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
4. “Faith presupposes natural knowledge, even as grace presupposes nature, and perfection supposes something that can be perfected.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
5. “If you want to be saved look the face of your Christ.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
6. “The image of God always abides in the soul, whether this image be obsolete and clouded over as to amount to almost nothing; or whether it be obscured or disfigured, as is the case with sinners; or whether it be clear and beautiful as is the case with the just.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
7. “Whatever was in the human nature of Christ was moved at the bidding of the divine will; yet it does not follow that in Christ there was no movement of the will proper to human nature, for the good wills of other saints are moved by God’s will… For although the will cannot be inwardly moved by any creature, yet it can be moved inwardly by God.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
8. “A hymn is the praise of God with song; a song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
9. “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
10. “Sing, my tongue, the Savior’s glory,
Of His Flesh the mystery sing;
Of the Blood, all price exceeding,
Shed by our immortal King.”
-St. Thomas Aquinas
11. “Thus Angels’ Bread is made
The Bread of man today:
The Living Bread from Heaven
With figures doth away:
O wondrous gift indeed!
The poor and lowly may
Upon their Lord and Master feed.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
12. “Anything done against faith or conscience is sinful.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
st. Thomas aquinus quotes about life and man
He spent his life in service to others: by teaching and preaching. He led a very destitute life, liberating himself from the shackles of feudalism. His parents kept him in captivity for a year when he expressed his wish to join the convent of Saint-Jacques in Paris. He employed Platonism to develop his philosophy.
- “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.”
“Whatever is received into something is received according to the condition of the receiver”-St. Thomas Aquinas
2. “It is better to illuminate than merely to shine.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
3. “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.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
4. “Justice without mercy is cruelty; mercy without justice is dissolution.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
5. “Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
6. “Beware the man of a single book.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
“7. 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.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
8. “The things that we love tell us what we are.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
9. “There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
10. “Well-ordered self-love is right and natural.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
11. “Reason in man is rather like God in the world”-St. Thomas Aquinas
12. “Charity, by which God and neighbor are loved, is the most perfect friendship”-St. Thomas Aquinas
13. “It must be said that charity can, in no way, exist along with mortal sin.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
14. “The reason, however, why the philosopher may be likened to the poet is this: both are concerned with the marvellous.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
15. “All that I have written seems like straw compared to what has now been revealed to me.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
16. “The greatness of the human being consists in this: that it is capable of the universe.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
17. “Just as it is better to illuminate than merely to shine, so to pass on what one has contemplated is better than merely to contemplate.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
18. “Man cannot live without joy. That is why one deprived of spiritual joys goes over to carnal pleasures.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
19. “To love is to will the good of the other”-St. Thomas Aquinas
St. Thomas Aquinas Philosophy and virtue quotes
He was influenced by the contemporary philosophy of rationalism and naturalism. Roger Bacon was also teaching in Paris at the time and is a proponent of rationalism. He lived at a time of spiritual tumult since scientific advances no longer supported biblical theories of the world and its origins.
- “The Philosopher, too, says of the wicked (that) their soul is divided against itself . . . one part pulls this way, another that” and afterwards he concludes, saying: “If wickedness makes a man so miserable, he should strain every nerve to avoid vice.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
2. “Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
3. “The times are never so bad that a good man cannot live in them”-St. Thomas Aquinas
4. “To convert somebody go and take them by the hand and guide them.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
5. “Beauty adds to goodness a relation to the cognitive faculty: so that “good” means that which simply pleases the appetite; while the “beautiful” is something pleasant to apprehend.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
6. “To scorn the dictate of reason is to scorn the commandment of God.
Perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
7. “Now in matters of action the reason directs all things in view of the end.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
8. “We should eliminate sin if we wish to eliminate the scourge of tyrants.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
9. “I answer that, Every being, as being, is good. For all being, as being, has actuality and is in some way perfect; since every act implies some sort of perfection; and perfection implies desirability and goodness… Hence it follows that every being as such is good.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
st. Thomas aquinas quotes about truth and knowledge
There were a lot of technical advances too. Aquinas believed in two truths: faith and reason. Although this dualism is hostile to the orthodox religious ideas of the 13th century. He was against conservative interpretations of Aristotelian theories. He believed in the autonomy of reason which was a radical idea at the time. He thought of religion as a pursuit of truth and knowledge. His ideas were progressive and refreshing for his time.
- “The truth can be perceived only through thinking, as is proven by Augustine.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
2. “Our manner of knowing is so weak that no philosopher could perfectly investigate the nature of even one little fly.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
3. “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.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
4. “Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which set bounds to the passions.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
5. “The splendor of a soul in grace is so seductive that it surpasses the beauty of all created things.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
6. “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.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
7. “Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
8. “Again, it is self-evident that truth exists. For truth exists if anything at all is true, and if anyone denies that truth exists, he concedes that it is true that it does not exist, since if truth does not exist it is then true that it does not exist.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
9. “In deliberation we may hesitate; but a deliberated act must be performed swiftly.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
10. “Reason in man is rather like God in the world.”-St. Thomas Aquinas
11. “Nothing can be known, save what is true.”-St. Thomas Aquinas