Without the suitable conditions life could not exist. But both life and its conditions set forth the operations of inscrutable Power. We know not its origin; we know not its end. And the presumption, if not the degradation, rests with those who place upon the throne of the universe a magnified image of themselves, and make its doings a mere colossal imitation of their own. Wonder was the motive that led people to philosophy ... wonder is a kind of desire in knowledge. It is the cause of delight because it carries with it the hope of discovery.

The knowledge of God is the cause of things. For the knowledge of God is to all creatures what the knowledge of the artificer is to things made by his art.

We can't have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing; then afterwards we may be led on to master the evidence for ourselves.

For loving draws us more to things than knowing does, since good is found by going to the thing, whereas the true is found when the thing comes to us.

The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is.

The same fire" (which he decides to be material) " torments the damned in hell and the just in purgatory...The least pain in purgatory exceeds the greatest in this life.

Far graver is it to corrupt the faith that is the life of the soul than to counterfeit the money that sustains temporal life.