R.S. Thomas Quotes

The first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method.

By how much one man has more experience of things past, than another, by so much also he is more prudent, and his expectations the seldomer fail him.

There is more in Mersenne than in all the universities together.

A wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men) that wise men only should be able to commend him.

To understand this for sense it is not required that a man should be a geometrician or a logician, but that he should be mad.

And this Feare of things invisible, is the naturall Seed of that, which every one in himself calleth Religion; and in them that worship, or feare that Power otherwise than they do, Superstition.

Science is the knowledge of Consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another: by which, out of that we can presently do, we know how to do something else when we will, or the like, another time

The past is only a guidepost... not a hitching post.

hen the price of carbon reaches $100 a tonne, then it will become an economically viable business proposition to start taking CO₂ out of the atmosphere and sequestering it underground.

Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams, Unnatural and full of contradictions; Yet others of our most romantic schemes, Are something more than fictions.

Oh! God! That bread should be so dear, and flesh and blood so cheap!

There have been countless changes in the long history of art. The most significant have been brought about by the genius of a single artist.

We are prone to see what lies behind our eyes, rather than what apprears before them.

The birth of science was the death of superstition.

For every man the world is as fresh as it was at the first day, and as full of untold novelties for him who has the eyes to see them.

There is but one right, and the possibilities of wrong are infinite.

There is no sea more dangerous than the ocean of practical politics none in which there is more need of good pilotage and of a single, unfaltering purpose when the waves rise high.

All knowledge is good. It is impossible to say any fragment of knowledge, however insignificant or remote from one's ordinary pursuits, may not some day be turned to account.

Any fool can make soap. It takes a clever man to sell it.

I wasn't the brightest kid, not by a long shot. I was interested in football, in girls, in getting my work done with the least amount of effort.

What I really don't like is oversimplification.

Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.

A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.

Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.

The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, in-as-much as he who knows nothing is nearer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehood and errors.

My passion strengthens daily to quit political turmoil, and retire into the bosom of my family, the only scene of sincere and purehappiness.

An occasional insurrection will not weigh against the inconveniences of a government of force, such as are monarchies and aristocracies.

I hope that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.

[O]ur rules can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God.

Debt and revolution are inseparable as cause and effect.

The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold of us.

Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.

It is proof of sincerity, which I value above all things; as, between those who practice it, falsehood and malice work their efforts in vain.

Against us are all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty We are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils.

A lottery is a salutary instrument and a tax... laid on the willing only, that is to say, on those who can risk the price of a ticket without sensible injury, for the possibility of a higher prize.

I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in their times.

I know nothing more important to inculcate into the minds of young people than the wisdom, the honor, and the blessed comfort of living within their income.

In our early struggles for liberty, religious freedom could not fail to become a primary object.

If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.

It is in the love of one's family only that heartfelt happiness is known.

Experience has taught me that manufacturers are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort.

The uniform tenor of a man's life furnishes better evidence of what he has said or done on any particular occasion than the word of any enemy.

History has informed us that bodies of men as well as individuals are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny.

I'd rather have newspapers and no government than government and no newspapers.

I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation and the favor which bring him into it.

Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its happiness.

But under the beaming, constant and almost vertical sun of Virginia, shade is our Elysium. In the absence of this no beauty of the eye can be enjoyed.

There is no habit you will value so much as that of walking far without fatigue.

If a sect arises whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has fair play and reasons and laughs it out of doors without suffering the State to be troubled with it.