Thomistic Common Sense Quotes

“Man will be fully a person, a per se subsistens and a per se operans, only in so far as the life of reason and liberty dominates that of the senses and passions in him; otherwise he will remain like the animal, a simple individual, the slave of events and circumstances, always led by something else, incapable of guiding himself; he will be only a part, without being able to aspire to be a whole...
Personality, on the contrary, increases as the soul rises above the sensible world and by intelligence and will binds itself more closely to what makes the life of the spirit.
The philosophers have caught sight of it, but the saints especially have understood, that the full development of our poor personality consists in losing it in some way in that of God, who alone possesses personality in the perfect sense of the word, for He alone is absolutely independent in His being and action.”
― Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Thomistic Common Sense: The Philosophy of Being and the Development of Doctrine