Thomas Aquinas Quotes

I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine.

Do you think that any one can move the heart but He that made it?

We only know God in His works, but we are forced by science to admit and to believe with absolute confidence in a Directive Power-in an influence other than physical, or dynamical, or electrical forces.

We declare, upon Scriptural authority, that the human will is so desperately set on mischief, so depraved, and so inclined to everything that is evil, and so disinclined to everything that is good, that without the powerful, supernatural, irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit, no human will ever be constrained towards Christ.

Grace does not work like a penny in a slot machine. Grace will move you only when you want it to move you, and only when you let it move you. The supernatural order supposes the freedom of the natural order, but it does not destroy it.

A man does not always choose what his guardian angel intends.

They babble and talk absurdly who, in the place of God's providence, substitute bare permission - as if God sat in a watchtower awaiting chance events , and his judgments thus depended upon human will.

We bow our heads before Thee, and we laud, And magnify thy name Almighty God! But man is thy most awful instrument, In working out a pure intent.

No one is moral among the god-controlled puppets of the _Iliad_. Good and evil do not exist.

To admit that there is any such thing as chance, in the common acceptation of the term, would be to attempt to establish a power independent of God.

I dreamed kind Jesus fouled the big-gun gears; and caused a permanent stoppage in all bolts; and buckled with a smile Mausers and Colts; and rusted every bayonet with His tears.

For not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine. Had he learned by rules of art, he would have known how to speak not of one theme only, but of all; and therefore God takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves who utter these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker, and that through them he is conversing with us.

When we are stirred to lament the loss of the gods, it is more than likely the gods who are doing the stirring.

For when I came into the silent assemblies of God's people I felt a secret power among them which touched my heart; and as I gave way unto it I found the evil weakening in me and the good raised up

The whole concept of providence is that God knows everything about what we do.

God got the power, man has got his vanity. Man gotta choose before God can set him free.

Look now how mortals are blaming the gods, for they say that evils come from us, but in fact they themselves have woes beyond their share because of their own follies.

If God thinks this state of war in the universe is a price worth paying for free will--that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings--then we may take it it is worth paying.

You will win as many souls as God gives you, but no one will be converted by your own power.

The hand of the wicked can't stir one moment before God allows them to begin, and...one moment after God commands them to stop.

Some will say, Is not God alone the Prolific? I answer, God only Acts & Is, in existing beings or Men.

But if we admit God, must we admit Miracle? Indeed, indeed, you have no security against it. That is the bargain. Theology says to you in effect, 'Admit God and with Him the risk of a few miracles, and I in return will ratify your faith in uniformity as regards the overwhelming majority of events.

The regenerating Spirit is compared to the wind. His first attempts on the soul may be so secret that the creature knows not whence they come, or whither they tend; but, before he hath done, the sound will be heard throughout the soul.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.

Nobody can convert you except God.