Controversial Sayings

Having children is the only worthy fruit of sexual intercourse.

Sexual abstinence, to avoid lust, is rare among married partners.

For whenever unbaptized persons die confessing Christ, this confession is of the same efficacy for the remission of sins as if they were washed in the sacred font of baptism.

The human nature, which first existed, is praised by these men as being so far less tainted with evil manners?

Our nature became corrupted and ruined; and nothing but God's grace alone, through Him who is the Mediator between God and men, and our Almighty Physician, succours it.

With regard to heretics two points must be observed, one on their side, the other on the side of the Church. As for heretics their sin deserves banishment, not only from the Church by excommunication, but also from this world by death.

To corrupt the faith, whereby the soul lives, is much graver than to counterfeit money, which supports temporal life.

Since forgers and other malefactors are summarily condemned to death by the civil authorities, with much more reason may heretics as soon as they are convicted of heresy be not only excommunicated, but also justly be put to death.

The inferiority of women lies not just in bodily strength but in force of intellect.

Feminine intellectual inferiority actually contributes to the order and beauty of the universe.

Women are by nature 'deficient and misbegotten.'

The essential value of her creation is 'for the generation of the species.'

Women are important not for any inherent value or virtue, but for their ability to reproduce.

Female subordination... is not a result of the fall, but part of the created order. Such female subordination, he argues, is actually 'for their own benefit and good.'

Strictly speaking, woman is a monster of nature.

In procreation the man is active, the woman is passive.

The rites of other infidels, which bear no truth or profit, are not to be tolerated in the same way, except perhaps to avoid some evil, for instance the scandal or disturbance that might result, or the hindrance to the salvation of those who, were th…

It is much graver to corrupt the faith, whereby the soul lives, than to forge money, which supports temporal life.

The general intellectual inferiority of women does not make them defective or inferior simply speaking, but only in the particular natural order, in comparison to most males and to beings with a more perfect nature—namely, the angels.

Without imperfection there would be no diversity, and without diversity the universe would not represent God in the best possible way.