To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
Thomas Aquinas
Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand.
There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.
If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.
The things that we love tell us what we are.
Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.
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.
Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.
A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational.
Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.
Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.
The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.
Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine.
Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man's own will.
As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power.
Law; an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community.
Every judgement of conscience, be it right or wrong, be it about things evil in themselves or morally indifferent, is obligatory, in such wise that he who acts against his conscience always sins.
Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good.
Wonder is the desire for knowledge.
It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes.
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.
Well-ordered self-love is right and natural.
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.
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.
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.
To convert somebody go and take them by the hand and guide them.
Whatever is received is received according to the nature of the recipient.
Because we cannot know what God is, but only what He is not, we cannot consider how He is but only how He is not.
Most men seem to live according to sense rather than reason.
By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.
Beware of the person of one book.
How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God.
If, then, you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ, because He Himself is the way.
All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.
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.
The principal act of courage is to endure and withstand dangers doggedly rather than to attack them.
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.
Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.
Reason in man is rather like God in the world.
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.
It is necessary to posit something which is necessary of itself, and has no cause of its necessity outside of itself but is the cause of necessity in other things. And all people call this thing God.
The knowledge of God is the cause of things. For the knowledge of God is to all creatures what the knowledge of the artificer is to things made by his art.
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.
Human salvation demands the divine disclosure of truths surpassing reason.
Justice is a certain rectitude of mind whereby a man does what he ought to do in the circumstances confronting him.
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.
Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious.
To live well is to work well, to show a good activity.
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.
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.
