Quotes from Thomas Aquinas

Distinctions drawn by the mind are not necessarily equivalent to distinctions in reality.

The fire of hell is called eternal, only because it never ends. Still, there is change in the pains of the lost... Hence in hell true eternity does not exist, but rather time.

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.

Three conditions are necessary for Penance: contrition, which is sorrow for sin, together with a purpose of amendment; confession of sins without any omission; and satisfaction by means of good works.

The things that we love tell us what we are.

To love is to will the good of the other.

How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God.

To love God is something greater than to know Him.

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.

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

The things we love tell us who we are.

God is never angry for His sake, only for ours.

In the realm of evil thoughts none induces to sin as much as do thoughts that concern the pleasure of the flesh.

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

Charity is love; not all love is charity.

Love follows knowledge.

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.

The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth.

Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.

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

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.

It would seem that zeal is not an effect of love. For zeal is a beginning of contention.

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.

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.