R.S. Thomas Quotes

If thou wilt fly from God, the devil will lend thee both spurs and a horse.

Ever tell me of a humble heart where I see a stubborn knee.

For loving draws us more to things than knowing does, since good is found by going to the thing, whereas the true is found when the thing comes to us.

Mistakes are made on two counts: an argument is either based on error or incorrectly developed.

Give, expecting nothing there of.

All men are equal in nature, and also in original sin. It is in the merits and demerits of their actions that they differ.

I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it. I would hope to act with compassion without thinking of personal gain.

Sloth is sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good...it is evil in its effect, if it so oppresses man as to draw him away entirely from good deeds.

It is not possible to be ignorant of the end of things if we know their beginning.

Anything done against faith or conscience is sinful.

He who is dying of hunger must be fed rather than taught.

It is a sin directly against one's neighbour, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them.

Even the law of gravitation would be brought into dispute were there a pecuniary interest involved.

Books are becoming everything to me. If I had at this moment any choice in life, I would bury myself in one of those immense libraries...and never pass a waking hour without a book before me.

We never could clearly understand how it is that egotism, so unpopular in conversation, should be so popular in writing.

Nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand.

More sinners are cursed at not because we despise their sins but because we envy their success at sinning.

A glance, a word -- and joy or pain befalls.... How slight the links are in the chain that binds us to our destiny!

It were better to be a soldier's widow than a coward's wife.

The ring of a false coin is not more recognizable than that of a rhyme setting forth a false sorrow.

Being nationalistic in France has nothing in common with being patriotic in America.

The old people must start talking and the young people must start listening.

Age is deformed, youth unkind, We scorn their bodies, they our mind.

Survival in any meaningful sense is the key issue of our time

For the world, I count it not an inn, but a hospital; and a place not to live, but to die in.

There is another man within me that's angry with me.

Light that makes things seen, makes some things invisible.

We do but learn to-day what our better advanced judgements will unteach us tomorrow.

(Death is) A leap into the dark.

I have tried if I could reach that great resolution . . . to be honest without a thought of Heaven or Hell.

Praise is a debt we owe unto the virtue of others, and due unto our own from all whom malice hath not made mutes, or envy struck dumb.

The only thing that is fundamental (real) is consciousness itself; all else is virtual- i.e., a result of an exchange of information within consciousness.

The battle that never ends is the battle of belief against disbelief

The eternal stars shine out again, so soon as it is dark enough.

Democracy means despair of finding any heroes to govern you, and contented putting up with the want of them.

There is precious instruction to be got by finding we were wrong.

The great soul of this world is just.

The Ideal is in thyself, the impediments too is in thyself.

Poetry is the attempt which man makes to render his existence harmonious.

All work of man is as the swimmer's: a vast ocean threatens to devour him; if he front it not bravely, it will keep its word.

Feel it in thy heart and then say whether it is of God!

Affectation is the product of falsehood.

The essence of humor is sensibility; warm, tender fellow-feeling with all forms of existence.

A man perfects himself by working.

The scandalous bronze-lacquer age of hungry animalisms, spiritual impotences, and mendacities, will have to run its course, till the pit follow it.

He who would write heroic poems should make his whole life a heroic poem.

The All of Things is an infinite conjugation of the verb To do .

Love not Pleasure; love God.

He that has a secret should not only hide it, but hide that he has it to hide.

He who takes not counsel of the Unseen and Silent, from him will never come real visibility and speech.