R.S. Thomas Quotes

This is the best book ever written by any man on the wrong side of a question of which he is profoundly ignorant.

The Church is the handmaid of tyranny and the steady enemy of liberty.

With respect to the doctrine of a future life, a North American Indian knows just as much as any ancient or modern philosopher.

A beggarly people, A church and no steeple.

Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be.

In order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America.

The chief-justice was rich, quiet, and infamous.

Lars Porsena of Clusium By the Nine Gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin Should suffer wrongs no more.

A few more years will destroy whatever yet remains of that magical potency which once belonged to the name of Byron.

In perseverance, in self command, in forethought, in all virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed.

Ambrose Phillips . . . who had the honor of bringing into fashion a species of composition which has been called, after his name, Namby Pamby.

Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.

Thus our democracy was from an early period the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic.

Was none who would be foremost To lead such dire attack; But those behind cried "Forward!" And those before cried "Back!

[I can] scarcely write upon mathematics or mathematicians. Oh for words to express my abomination of the science.

He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child.

So true it is, that nature has caprices which art cannot imitate.

He had done that which could never be forgiven; he was in the grasp of one who never forgave.

In the modern languages there was not, six hundred years ago, a single volume which is now read. The library of our profound scholar must have consisted entirely of Latin books.

Language is the machine of the poet.

The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the Revolution of 1688 is this that this was our last Revolution.

The end of government is the happiness of the people.

Sense can support herself handsomely in most countries on some eighteen pence a day; but for fantasy, planets and solar systems, will not suffice.

The opinion of the great body of the reading public is very materially influenced even by the unsupported assertions of those who assume a right to criticize.

Temple was a man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters amongst men of the world.

There are countries in which it would be as absurd to establish popular governments as to abolish all the restraints in a school or to unite all the strait-waistcoats in a madhouse.

Scotland by no means escaped the fate ordained for every country which is connected, but not incorporated, with another country of greater resources.

There is no country in Europe which is so easy to over-run as Spain; there is no country which it is more difficult to conquer.

If ever Shakespeare rants, it is not when his imagination is hurrying him along, but when he is hurrying his imagination along.

Highest among those who have exhibited human nature by means of dialogue stands Shakespeare. His variety is like the variety of nature,--endless diversity, scarcely any monstrosity.

The effective strength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by counting heads.

In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal rule that good poets are bad critics.

It is the Lord's Day, and I do believe that cheerful hearts and faces are not unpleasant in His sight.

The thing one reads and likes, and then forgets, is of no account. The thing that stays, and haunts one, and refuses to be forgotten, that is the sincere thing.

O harp of life, so speedily unstrung!

My mind lets go a thousand things, Like dates of wars and deaths of kings

What is a day to an immortal soul! A breath, no more.

That was indeed to live -- at one bold swoop to wrest from darkling death the best that death to life can give.

Day is a snow-white Dove of heaven That from the East glad message brings. Night is a stealthy, evil Raven, Wrapped to the eyes in his black wings.

So precious life is! Even to the old, the hours are as a miser's coins!

Dialect tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care for anything properly said.

Great orators who are not also great writers become very indistinct shadows to the generations following them. The spell vanishes with the voice.

The ability to have our own way, and at the same time convince others they are having their own way, is a rare thing among men. Among women it is as common as eyebrows.

The possession of gold has ruined fewer men than the lack of it. What noble enterprises have been checked and what fine souls have been blighted in the gloom of poverty the world will never know.

So I sit there kicked my heels, thinking about New Orleans, and watching a morbid blue-bottle fly attempt to commit suicide by butting his head against the windowpane.

My father invested his money so securely in the banking business that he was never able to get any of it out again.

The young girl in my story is to be as sensitive to praise as a prism is to light. Whenever anybody praises her she breaks into colors.

The laurels of an orator who is not a master of literary art wither quickly.

Between the reputation of the author living and the reputation of the same author dead there is ever a wide discrepancy.

Up from the dark the moon begins to creep; and now a pallid, haggard face lifts she above the water-line: thus from the deep a drowned body rises solemnly.