Quotes About Nature

If you cannot sing like the lark and the nightingale, sing like the raven and the frogs in the pond. They sing as God has given them to sing.

For the gifts of Nature belong to good and evil alike; but the proper gift of the elect is grace—that is, love— and they who bear the mark thereof are held worthy of everlasting life.

Nature has a relish for knowing secrets and hearing news. It wishes to appear abroad and to have sense experiences. It wishes to be known and to do things for which it will be praised and admired. But grace does not care to hear news or curious matters, because all this arises from the old corruption of man, since there is nothing new, nothing lasting on earth.

All men are equal in nature, and also in original sin. It is in the merits and demerits of their actions that they differ.

Man is closer to God according to his existence in grace than he is according to his existence in nature.

For just as the first general precepts of the law of nature are self-evident to one in possession of natural reason, and have no need of promulgation, so also that of believing in God is primary and self-evident to one who has faith: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is.

If ... the motion of the earth were circular, it would be violent and contrary to nature, and could not be eternal, since ... nothing violent is eternal.... It follows, therefore, that the earth is not moved with a circular motion.

Whatever is received is received according to the nature of the recipient.

As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power.

Thus the sun which possesses light perfectly, can shine by itself; whereas the moon which has the nature of light imperfectly, sheds only a borrowed light.

By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.

our manner of knowing is so weak that no philosopher could perfectly investigate the nature of even one little fly.

Even though the natural light of the human mind is inadequate to make known what is revealed by faith, nevertheless what is divinely taught to us by faith cannot be contrary to what we are endowed with by nature. One or the other would have to be false, and since we have both of them from God, he would be the cause of our error, which is impossible.

Faith presupposes natural knowledge, even as grace presupposes nature, and perfection supposes something that can be perfected.

I answer that, Every being, as being, is good. For all being, as being, has actuality and is in some way perfect; since every act implies some sort of perfection; and perfection implies desirability and goodness, as is clear from A[1]. Hence it follows that every being as such is good.

A capacity as such is directed to an act. Wherefore we seek to know the nature of a capacity from the act to which it is directed, and consequently the nature of a capacity is diversified as the nature of the act is diversified.

If, however, we understand by the firmament that part of the air in which the clouds are collected, then the waters above the firmament must rather be the vapors resolved from the waters which are raised above a part of the atmosphere, and from which the rain falls.

Thence it follows that in God essence is not really distinct from person; and yet that the persons are really distinguished from each other. For person, as above stated (Q[29], A[4]), signifies relation as subsisting in the divine nature. But relation as referred to the essence does not differ therefrom really, but only in our way of thinking; while as referred to an opposite relation, it has a real distinction by virtue of that opposition. Thus there are one essence and three persons.

Unde omnis lex humanitus posita intantum habet de ratione legis, inquantum a lege naturae derivatur. Si vero in aliquo a lege naturali discordet, iam non erit lex sed legis corruptio.

The Philosopher says (Metaph. ii, 2) that "to suppose a thing to be indefinite is to deny that it is good." But the good is that which has the nature of an end. Therefore it is contrary to the nature of an end to proceed indefinitely. Therefore it is necessary to fix one last end.

But the thing known is in the knower according to the mode of the knower. Hence the knowledge of every knower is ruled according to its own nature. If therefore the mode of anything's being exceeds the mode of the knower, it must result that the knowledge of the object is above the nature of the knower. Now the mode of being of things is manifold.

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.

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

In like manner humanity understood is only in this or that man; but that humanity be apprehended without conditions of individuality, that is, that it be abstracted and consequently considered as universal, occurs to humanity inasmuch as it is brought under the consideration of the intellect, in which there is a likeness of the specific nature, but not of the principles of individuality.