R.S. Thomas Quotes

The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.

The heart that has truly loved never forgets, But as truly loves on to the close.

A man taking basil from a woman will love her always.

Balanced budget requirements seem more likely to produce accounting ingenuity than genuinely balanced budgets.

Nature never writes a blind hand.

The FDA calls certain substances "controlled." But there are no "controlled substances," there are only controlled citizens.

Psychiatry is probably the single most destructive force that has affected American Society within the last fifty years.

The proverb warns that 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

The patriot's blood is the seed of Freedom's tree.

You have never loved me as I love you--never--never! Yours is not a passionate heart--your heart does not burn in a flame! You are, upon the whole, a sort of fay, or sprite-- not a woman!

Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than once.

And now, gentlemen, like your manners, I must leave you.

The greater the diversity, the greater the perfection.

I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent and sublime which have ever been preached to man.

It was important to me to believe, because if I don't believe, how can I expect them to believe?

Every child deserves a chance at a life filled with love, laughter, friends and family.

Before you reject an idea, find at least five good things about it.

A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.

We all eat & it would be a sad waste of opportunity to eat badly.

A man's heart is right when he wills what God wills.

There are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that cannot read may read our natures.

In archaeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the known.

Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists.

I don't think a tough question is disrespectful.

Jesus lived and died in vain if He did not teach us to regulate the whole of life by the eternal law of love. Gandhi, quoted in Merton, p. 38

He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest.

Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons.

Vision without execution is delusion.

All the wonders you seek are within yourself.

Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.

Screenwriting is like ironing. You move forward a little bit and go back and smooth things out.

The perfect woman, you see [is] a working-woman; not an idler; not a fine lady; but one who [uses] her hands and her head and her heart for the good of others.

Every generation needs a new revolution.

Tears streamed down my face as I crossed the finish line. I was a new person, a runner.

Lord Jesus, receive my spirit . . . I see the heavens open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

Modern civilization has no understanding of sacred matters. Everything is backwards.

The mountains were his masters. They rimmed in life. They were the cup of reality, beyond growth, beyond struggle and death. They were his absolute unity in the midst of eternal change.

Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.

Success is not in never failing, but rising everytime you fall!

There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.

Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God.

I’m alarmed that to think than modern science may be turning creativity into a medical disorder

Silence is sometimes an argument of Consent.

People are not remembered by how few times they fail, but by how often they succeed. Every wrong step is another step forward

The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.

If the Tenth Amendment were still taken seriously, most of the federal government's present activities would not exist. That's why no one in Washington ever mentions it.

The increasing influence of the Bible is marvelously great, penetrating everywhere. It carries with it a tremendous power of freedom and justice guided by a combined force of wisdom and goodness.

Ambition is a lust that is never quenched, but grows more inflamed and madder by enjoyment.