I leave you the best phrases of Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Italian Dominican friar, Catholic priest, philosopher and theologian of great influence in the tradition of scholasticism. Aquino's name identifies his ancestral origins in Aquino County in present-day Lazio.
You may also be interested in these phrases of Saint Augustine.
-There is nothing on this earth that should be more appreciated than a true friendship.
-If a captain's most important goal was to preserve his ship, he could keep it in port forever.
-The things we love tell us what we are.
-Sadness can be alleviated by a good nap, a bath, and a glass of wine.
-Most men seem to live according to their senses, rather than according to their reason.
-For one who has faith, an explanation is not necessary. More for those without faith, there is no possible explanation.
-By nature, all men are equal in freedoms, but not in other qualities.
-The times are never bad enough that a good man cannot live in them.
-Love is to wish the other well.
-The kindest gesture that someone can extend to another person is to guide them from error to truth.
-If you can live in the midst of injustice without feeling angry, then you are both immoral and unjust.
-One cannot use a bad action to allude to a good intention.
-The soul is perfected through knowledge and virtue.
-Since we cannot know what God is, but only what He is not, we cannot think about what He is like, but only about how He is not.
-The study of philosophy is not that we know what men have thought, if not what is the truth of things.
-The appropriate effect of the Eucharist is the transformation of man into God.
-Faith has to do with things that cannot be seen, and with waiting for things that seem to be coming.
-How can we live in harmony? We first need to know if we are all hopelessly in love with the same God.
-When they call the devil the god of this world, it is not because he did it, but because we serve him with our worldliness.
-The artist's proof does not rest on the avidity with which he is going to work, but on the excellence of the work he produces.
-The preaching is based mainly on the virtuous, later on the pleasant, and finally on the useful.
-God never gets angry with us for his sake, only for ours.
-Love is a binding force, in which another is united to me, and is treasured by me.
-If by then, you are looking for the path that you should take, choose Jesus Christ, since He himself is the path.
-Loving God is something greater than just knowing him.
-An angel can enlighten the mind and thought of man by strengthening the power of his vision.
-The science of mathematics treats objects as if they were something mentally abstract, when objectively it is not abstracted.
-In deliberating we could doubt, but a deliberate act must be executed with agility.
-Obviously, the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide, must believe everything that the Church professes.
-Nothing that has been created has been able to fill the heart of a man. God is only capable of infinitely filling it.
-It is better to illuminate than simply shine, to offer others well-studied truths, rather than simply reflect.
-Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends, even the most exciting pursuits become tedious.
-The soul is like an uninhabited world that comes to life once God rests his head against us.
-The distractions drawn by the mind are not necessarily equivalent to distinctions in reality.
-Good can exist without evil. Whereas evil cannot exist without good.
- Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolutions. Justice without mercy is an act of cruelty.
-A happy man needs friends in his life.
-Nothing that implies contradiction is considered inherent in the omnipotence of God.
-There must be a main engine above all, and we call this God.
-A man's heart is right when he wants what God wants.
-The man has freedom of decision, insofar as he is rational.
-The main act of bravery is to bear and endure dangers tenaciously, before attacking them.
-The well ordered self-love is correct and natural.
-The light of faith makes us see what we believe.
-It must be said that charity cannot, in any way, exist together with any mortal sin.
-A law is nothing other than a certain ordinance of reason to achieve the common good, promulgated by the person who takes care of the community.
-Miracles are not signs for those who believe, but for those who do not believe.
-Happiness is ensured through virtue. It is a good obtained through the will of man.
-Only God creates. The man just rearranges.
-There is within each soul a thirst for happiness and meaning.
-To pretend that angels do not exist because they are invisible is like believing that we never sleep because we do not see ourselves sleeping.
-The blessed in the kingdom of heaven will see the punishment of those damned, so that their happiness is more enjoyable.
-Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious.
-The truth of the Christian faith exceeds the capacity of reason.
-It is a requirement for the relaxation of the mind to make use, from time to time, of jokes and playful acts.
-The amazement is the appetite for knowledge.
-To achieve peace with himself or among others, shows that a man is a follower of God.
-The truth can only be perceived through thought, as Augustine proved.
-Nothing can be known except what is true.
-Justice is a certain rectitude of mind, in which a man does what duty dictates him to do, given the circumstances that arise.
-Man cannot live without joy. Therefore, when deprived of true spiritual joys, he becomes addicted to carnal pleasures.
-Due to the diversity of human conditions, it happens that some acts are virtuous for some, and therefore appropriate and suitable for them, while the same acts are immoral, and therefore inappropriate, for others.
-It is possible to demonstrate the existence of God, although not a priori, but a posteriori, through his acts, which are more feasible for us.
-The man should not consider his material possessions as his own, but as collective, in addition to sharing them without a doubt, when others are in need.
-For a war to be just, only three things are needed. First, the authority of the sovereign. Second, a just cause. And thirdly, a legitimate intention.
-We must love them both, those whose opinions we share, and those whose opinions we object to, since both parties have worked together in the search for the truth, and both parties have helped to find it.
-I'd rather feel compassion than know its meaning. I'd rather act compassionately than think of personal advantage.
-The truth of our faith becomes ridiculous to infidels when any Catholic, not endowed with sufficient scientific knowledge, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny has shown to be false.
-The study of the truth requires considerable effort. This is why very few are willing to do it solely for the love of knowledge, despite the fact that God has implanted a natural appetite for such knowledge in the minds of men.
-While injustice turns out to be the worst sin, hopelessness is the most dangerous, because when we are hopeless, we do not care about others or ourselves.
-It has become a fashion to talk about mysticism, even to be considered as mystics. Does this need to be said? Those who speak the most about these issues know the least about them.
-Fear is such a powerful feeling in humans, that when we let it take over us, it causes compassion to sprout from our hearts.
-Properly speaking, the taking in secret and using the property of another in case of extreme necessity cannot be considered theft, because what is taken to sustain one's own life, becomes the property of that person by reason of his need.
-The angels transcend all religion, all philosophy and all creed. In fact, angels don't have a religion like what we know. Its existence transcends any religious system that has existed on earth.
-Give me, oh Lord my God, a mind to know you, a heart to seek you, wisdom to find you, a behavior to your liking, a devoted perseverance to wait for you and the hope to finally accept you. Amen.
- Quite the opposite to an act of virtue, it is a sin. Furthermore, war is contrary to peace. Therefore, war is always a sin.
-We can't get the knowledge all at once. We need to start by believing, then we need to learn to become experts of the evidence for ourselves.
-María means “the star of the sea”. Just as sailors are led to port by the star of the sea, Christians achieve glory through the material intercession of Mary.
-Any judgment of conscience, be it good or bad, revolves around evil things or morally indifferent by themselves. Therefore, he who acted against his conscience will always sin.
-Three things are necessary to achieve the salvation of a man: knowing what he should believe, knowing what he should want, and knowing what he should do.
-Since philosophy arises from admiration, a philosopher is destined on his way to love myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are very similar in the degree of admiration towards things.
-If counterfeiters and criminals are sentenced to death by the secular power, there is much more ground to excommunicate, and even execute someone accused of heresy.
-The theologian considers sin primarily as an offense against God, while the moral philosopher as something opposed to rationality.
-There is only one Church in which man will find salvation, just as outside of Noah's ark, there was no possibility of someone being saved.
-In order for man to perform well, whether in the work of an active life or in a reflective life, he needs the company of his friends.
-In the life of a man's body, sometimes he becomes ill, and unless he takes medicine, he will die. In the same way it happens in the spiritual life of a man, which is sick with sin. For this reason, he needs medicine to restore his health, and this grace is granted through the sacrament of penance.