R.S. Thomas Quotes

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

God grant that men of principle shall be our principal men.

I never before knew the full value of trees. Under them I breakfast, dine, write, read and receive my company.

Government can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people.

Common sense is the foundation of all authorities, of the laws themselves, and of their construction.

Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics.

This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force.

The selfish spirit of commerce, which knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army

Whiskey claims to itself alone the exclusive office of sot-making.

I find as I grow older that I love those most whom I loved first.

We could in the United States make as great a variety of wines as are made in Europe, not exactly of the same kinds, but doubtless as good.

Let the farmer forevermore be honored in his calling; for they who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.

The constitution of the United States is the result of the collected wisdom of our country.

Gaming corrupts our disposition and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.

The best hemp and the best tobacco grow on the same kind of soil. The former article is of the first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country. The latter, never useful.

We prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form and to any people whatever.

The advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from [the clergy].

No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination.

Above all things, and at all times, practice yourself in good humor.

Establish the eternal truth that acquiescence under insult is not the way to escape war.

We must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies.

Every honest man will suppose honest acts to flow from honest principles, and the rogues may rail without intermission.

Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves.

We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.

The moral sense, or conscience, is as much part of a man as his leg or arm. It is given to all in a stronger or weaker degree.. It may be strengthened by exercise.

The lamp of war is kindled here, not to be extinguished but by torrents of blood.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

When two parties make a compact, there results to each a power of compelling the other to execute it.

I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared

He who is permitted by law to have no property of his own, can with difficulty conceive that property is founded in anything but force.

It is while we are young that the habit of industry is formed. If not then, it never is afterwards. The fortune of our lives therefore depends on employing well the short period of our youth.

We ought not to schismatize on either men or measures. Principles alone can justify that.

Morals were too essential to the happiness of man, to be risked on the uncertain combinations of the head. Nature laid their foundation, therefore, in sentiment, not in science.

Private fortunes, in the present state of our circulation, are at the mercy of those self-created money lenders, and are prostrated by the floods of nominal money with which their avarice deluges us.

I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old.

Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science by rendering them my supreme delight.

That government that governs least governs best.

[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.

I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern. My hopes indeed sometimes fail, but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.

It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt.

The evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come.

Man is fed with fables through life, and leaves it in the belief he knows something of what has been passing, when in truth he knows nothing but what has passed under his own eyes.

The sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive, but what they reject also.

It may be regarded as certain that not a foot of land will ever be taken from the Indians without their own consent.

Your own reason is the only oracle given to you by God.

The elective franchise, if guarded as the ark of our safety, will peaceably dissipate all combinations to subvert a Constitution, dictated by the wisdom, and resting on the will of the people.

The moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing.

Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.

The moral sense is the first excellence of well-organized man.