Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.
The times are never so bad that a good man cannot live in them.
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.
Honor is due to God and to persons of great excellence as a sign of attestation of excellence already existing; not that honor makes them excellent.
In deliberation we may hesitate; but a deliberated act must be performed swiftly.
The Stone is one, the Medicine is one, to which we add nothing, only in the preparation removing superfluities.
Whatever is received into something is received according to the condition of the receiver.
Angels need an assumed body, not for themselves, but on our account.
Pipes are not to be used for teaching, nor any artificial instruments, as the harp, or the like: but whatsoever will make the hearers good men.
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.
If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections – if he has any – against faith. Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated, it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations, but are difficulties that can be answered.
Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.
Now in matters of action the reason directs all things in view of the end:.
A capacity as such is directed to an act. Wherefore we seek to know the nature of a capacity from the act to which it is directed, and consequently the nature of a capacity is diversified as the nature of the act is diversified.
If you want to be saved look the face of your Christ.
We should eliminate sin if we wish to eliminate the scourge of tyrants.
The person who truly understands love could love anyone.
Of all human pursuits, the pursuit of wisdom is the most perfect, the most sublime, the most useful, and the most agreeable.
If, then, the final happiness of man does not consist in those exterior advantages which are called goods of fortune, nor in goods of the body, nor in goods of the soul in its sentient part, nor in the virtues of practical intellect, called art and prudence, it remains that the final happiness of man consists in the contemplation of truth.
Faith presupposes natural knowledge, even as grace presupposes nature, and perfection supposes something that can be perfected.
All things, by desiring their own perfection, desire God Himself.