If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.
– Thomas Aquinas
Apathy
Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand.
– Thomas Aquinas
Faith
To live well is to work well, to show a good activity.
– Thomas Aquinas
Success | Work
Far graver is it to corrupt the faith that is the life of the soul than to counterfeit the money that sustains temporal life.
– Thomas Aquinas
Faith | Money
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
Patience
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
Faith | Believing | Knowledge
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.
– Thomas Aquinas
Achievement | Excellence | Work
Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.
– Thomas Aquinas
Truth
A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational.
– Thomas Aquinas
Reasoning | Choices | Freedom
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
Life
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
Giving
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
– Thomas Aquinas
Faith
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
Virtue | Immorality
Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.
– Thomas Aquinas
Love | Knowledge
If, then, you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ, because He Himself is the way.
– Thomas Aquinas
Christ
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
War | Authority
To convert somebody go and take them by the hand and guide them.
– Thomas Aquinas
Conversion | Leadership
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.
– Thomas Aquinas
Hell
Human salvation demands the divine disclosure of truths surpassing reason.
– Thomas Aquinas
Salvation | Truth
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.
– Thomas Aquinas
Love
Wonder is the desire for knowledge.
– Thomas Aquinas
Education | Knowledge
Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good.
– Thomas Aquinas
Good and Evil
Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine.
– Thomas Aquinas
Life
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
Heresy
It is clear that he does not pray, who, far from uplifting himself to God, requires that God shall lower Himself to him, and who resorts to prayer not to stir the man in us to will what God wills, but only to persuade God to will what the man in us wills.
– Thomas Aquinas
Prayer
It is possible to demonstrate God’s existence, although not a priori, yet a posteriori from some work of His more surely known to us.
– Thomas Aquinas
God
Beware of the person of one book.
– Thomas Aquinas
Books
All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said has its origin in the Spirit.
– Thomas Aquinas
Truth
Reason in man is rather like God in the world.
– Thomas Aquinas
Reasoning
Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.
– Thomas Aquinas
Friendship
Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.
– Thomas Aquinas
Carnality | Happiness | Joy
Clearly the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the Church teaches.
– Thomas Aquinas
Heresy
To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer.
– Thomas Aquinas
Evangelism
It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes.
– Thomas Aquinas
Reasoning
All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.
– Thomas Aquinas
Reasoning
Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passions.
– Thomas Aquinas
Discretion | Passion
How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God.
– Thomas Aquinas
God
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.
– Thomas Aquinas
Gossip
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.
– Thomas Aquinas
Philosophy
Whatever is received is received according to the nature of the recipient.
– Thomas Aquinas
Character
Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them.
– Thomas Aquinas
Virtue | Passion
The principal act of courage is to endure and withstand dangers doggedly rather than to attack them.
– Thomas Aquinas
Courage | Endurance
God destines us for an end beyond the grasp of reason.
– Thomas Aquinas
Heaven
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
Salvation
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
Salvation
There is within every soul a thirst for happiness and meaning.
– Thomas Aquinas
Happiness
When fear is excessive it can make many a man despair.
– Thomas Aquinas
Fear
As a matter of honor, one man owes it to another to manifest the truth.
– Thomas Aquinas
Truth
By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.
– Thomas Aquinas
Life | Men | Liberty
Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church.
– Thomas Aquinas
Faith | Unity | History
There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.
– Thomas Aquinas
Friendship
Most men seem to live according to sense rather than reason.
– Thomas Aquinas
Reasoning | Men
Faith is God’s work within us.
– Thomas Aquinas
Faith
Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man’s own will.
– Thomas Aquinas
Happiness | Virtue
The things that we love tell us what we are.
– Thomas Aquinas
Love
I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it.
– Thomas Aquinas
Compassion
Moral science is better occupied when treating of friendship than of justice.
– Thomas Aquinas
Friendship | Justice
Justice is a certain rectitude of mind whereby a man does what he ought to do in the circumstances confronting him.
– Thomas Aquinas
Justice | Circumstances
Law; an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community.
– Thomas Aquinas
Government | Community