Quotes from St. Thomas Aquinas

Forasmuch as our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, in order to "save His people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21), as the angel announced, showed unto us in His own Person the way of truth,

Happiness consists in self-application to something higher.

Hence Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. ii, 8): "The other things which are lower than the angels are so created that they first receive existence in the knowledge of the rational creature, and then in their own nature.

Objection 3: Further, it is written (1 Cor. 13:12): "We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face.

Reply to Objection 1: There is nothing wholly evil in the world, for evil is ever founded on good, as shown above (Q[48], A[3]). Therefore something is said to be evil through its escaping from the order of some particular good. If it wholly escaped from the order of the Divine government, it would wholly cease to exist.

Human beings are by their nature social and political, living in community even more than every other animal.

Shepherds of the flock should . . . seek the good of their flock, and every ruler the good of the people subject to him.

The mind stands upright when it is humbly submitted to God. For each thing exists to a higher and more noble state to the extent it stands firm in what perfects it more.

I answer that, The will can be changed in two ways. First, from within; in which way, since the movement of the will is nothing but the inclination of the will to the thing willed, God alone can thus change the will, because He gives the power of such an inclination to the intellectual nature. For as the natural inclination is from God alone Who gives the nature, so the inclination of the will is from God alone, Who causes the will.

Therefore, as the divine wisdom is the cause of the distinction of things for the sake of the perfection of the universe, so it is the cause of inequality. For the universe would not be perfect if only one grade of goodness were found in things.

But there are more wicked men to be found than good; according to Eccles. 1:15: "The number of fools is infinite.

Yet no-one can say that God has not a Word, for it would follow that God is most foolish.