Saint Thomas Aquinas · 1225–1274
St Thomas Aquinas Quotes
Aquinas wrote systematically, in arguments rather than aphorisms, which is why so much of what circulates under his name is a paraphrase of someone summarising him. These are lines traceable to his own texts.
On faith and reason
Aquinas spent his life arguing that faith and reason cannot finally contradict each other, because both come from God. He is not a fideist, and the most famous quote attributed to him says the opposite of what he taught — see the disputed section.
“Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.”
“Whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver.”
On love and desire
For Aquinas, love is not a feeling about a thing but a movement toward its good.
“To love is to will the good of another.”
“There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.”
On prayer
His prayers are the least systematic and most personal thing he wrote, and the place where the argument stops.
“Grant me, O Lord my God, a mind to know you, a heart to seek you, wisdom to find you, conduct pleasing to you, faithful perseverance in waiting for you, and a hope of finally embracing you.”
Quotes wrongly attributed to St Thomas Aquinas
These circulate widely under St Thomas Aquinas's name and are not his. They are listed here so you do not put one in a homily, a bulletin or a citation.
“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
The single most quoted line attributed to Aquinas, and it is not his. It appears in Franz Werfel's 1941 novel The Song of Bernadette as the book's epigraph, written by Werfel. It is also, awkwardly, the opposite of Aquinas's actual position — his life's work was that explanation and faith belong together.
“Beware the man of a single book.”
Attributed to Aquinas for centuries in the Latin form hominem unius libri timeo. There is no source for it in his works, and even in the tradition its meaning is reversed as often as not.
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