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Discipline

Study on your knees as well

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Intelligence goes further when it does not need to pretend to be self-sufficient.

When the professors of Paris asked St. Thomas for help on a difficult question, he did not improvise a brilliant answer. He studied, thought, and also prayed. He did not separate intelligence from the humble recognition of its limits. Praying does not replace reading, contrasting, or reasoning. But studying as if everything depended on your talent can fill you with noise and pride. Prayer purifies the intention: you seek to understand, not merely to win an argument or appear to be the smartest. Faced with a complex matter, head and knees can collaborate. Thinking with rigor and asking for light are not enemy paths; both are born from respect for the truth.

Key idea

Prayer does not replace study: it makes it more humble and pure.

Your challenge for this idea

Before studying or solving something difficult today, ask for light for one minute and then work seriously.

BASED ON

Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1224–1274 →