R.S. Thomas Quotes
For men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in marble; and whoso doth us a good turn we write it in dust.
Laughing at ourselves is possible when we are able to see humanity as it is - a little lower than the angels and at times only slightly higher than the apes.
I've reached most my goals and when my career is over I will have many other things to do.
Without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting. With consciousness it seems hopeless.
Common sense doesn't have the last word in ethics or anywhere else, but it has, as J. L. Austin said about ordinary language, the first word: it should be examined before it is discarded.
Poetry is the honey of all flowers, the quintessence of all sciences, the marrow of wit, and the very phrase of angels.
I have rarely seen the face of a mechanic in the action of creation which was not fine, never one which was not earnest and impressive.
Fill the seats of justice with good men, not so absolute in goodness as to forget what human frailty is.
The mysteries of Nature and of humanity are not lessened, but increased, by the discoveries of philosophic skill.
Home I would go But that my doors are hateful to my eyes, Fill'd and damm'd up with gaping creditors, Watchful as fowlers when their game will spring.
Base natures ever judge a thing above them, and hate a power they are too much obliged to.
There is such sweet pain in parting that I could hang forever on thine arms, and look away my life into thine eyes.
No flattery, boy! an honest man cannot live by it; it is a little, sneaking art, which knaves use to cajole and soften fools withal.
It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt
There is something in corruption which, like a jaundiced eye, transfers the color of itself to the object it looks upon, and sees everything stained and impure.
When it becomes necessary to do a thing, the whole heart and soul should go into the measure, or not attempt it.
To reason with goverments, as they have existed for ages, is to argue with brutes. It is only from the nations themselves that reforms can be expected
That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations is as shocking as it is true.
No nation ought to be without a debt. A national debt is a national bond; and when it bears no interest, is in no case a grievance.
We can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities.
On this question of war, three things are to be considered. First, the right of declaring it: secondly, the expense of supporting it: thirdly, the mode of conducting it after it is declared.
Every religion is good that teaches man to be good; and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.
It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action; it begets a calamitous necessity of going on.
The final event to himself has been, that as he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.
And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender, sympathizing and benevolent in the heart of man.
Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.
But where, says some, is the King of America? I'll tell you. Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain.
Mingling religion with politics may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America.
There is a natural firmness in some minds, which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude.
The New Testament, they tell us, is founded upon the prophecies of the Old; if so, it must follow the fate of its foundation.
The more acquisitions the government makes abroad, the more taxes the people have to pay at home.
And this manner of speaking of the Almighty, as one would speak of a man, is consistent with nothing but the stupidity of the Bible.
The animals to whom nature has given the faculty we call cunning know always when to use it, and use it wisely; but when man descends to cunning he blunders and betrays.
It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human invention; it is only the application of them that is human.
There is something absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.