Tao Te Ching
Thomas Aquinas
1225 – 1274 CE
Greatest Catholic theologian/philosopher, considered one of the top 12 western philosophers of all time, jurist, and Dominican friar; Aquinas had a dominant influence on Western culture, ethics, law, and political theory. Breaking from the theology of his time, he attempted reconciling ancient Greek philosophy (mainly Aristotle) with Christianity, extolled reason over blind faith, and created an intellectual platform for science that is still being used today by cognitive neuroscientists researching brain dynamics. Undermining dogmatic, rigid approaches to morality, his “Principle of double effect” emphasizes intention over consequences and is still debated in places like the U.S. Supreme Court. John Stuart Mill criticized this attitude stating that while intention may help judge character, it doesn’t effect the rightness/wrongness of an action.
Lineages
Christian Roman / Italian
Eras
Chinese
5 Kingdom of Dali 大理国 (937 – 1253 CE)Southern Song (1127 – 1279 CE)
Yuan Dynasty 元朝 (1271 – 1368 CE)
Sources
Unlisted Sources
Quotes by Thomas Aquinas (15 quotes)
“There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship… Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.”
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“There can be no joy of life without joy of work.”
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“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
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“Law: an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community.”
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“Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand.”
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“This is true which is, therefore contradictions can be true at the same time since they seem to be true as seen by different persons at the same time.”
from Summa Theologica
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“War is contrary to peace. Therefore war is always a sin.”
from Summa Theologica
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“Shun, as you would the plague, a cleric who from being poor has become wealthy, or who, from being a nobody has become a celebrity.”
from Summa Theologica
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“nothing can be known, save what is true”
from Summa Theologica
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“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.”
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“Wherever complex design exists, there must have been a designer; nature is complex; therefore nature must have had an intelligent designer.”
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Quotes about Thomas Aquinas (3 quotes)
“Another Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas—a man who took the universe for his specialty, and flung a frail bridge of reason across the chasms between knowledge and belief—unified knowledge interpreting it, and focusing it all upon the great problems of life and death. Even today, his thought is reverenced as still sounder than science, and his philosophy is the official systems of the most power church in Christendom.”
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“Regarded as the greatest of scholastic philosophers in the battle for Aristotle against Plato, there is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. Before he begins to philosophize, he believes he already knows the truth. I cannot, therefore, feel that he deserves to be put on a level with the best philosophers either of Greece or of modern times.”
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“Just as Shankara in 8th century India brought the scattered insights of the Upanishads into an intellectual system; and just as Aquinas in 13th century Europe wove Aristotle and St. Paul into the Scholastic philosophy; so Zhu Xi took the loose apothegms of Confucius and built upon them a system of philosophy strong enough to preserve for 7 centuries the Confucian leadership in Chinese political and intellectual life.”
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