R.S. Thomas Quotes

The world is an old woman, and mistakes any gilt farthing for a gold coin; whereby being often cheated, she will thenceforth trust nothing but the common copper.

Are not our greatest men as good as lost? The men that walk daily among us, warming us, feeding us, walk shrouded in darkness, mere mythic men.

The steam-engine I call fire-demon and great; but it is nothing to the invention of fire.

All work is as seed sown; it grows and spreads, and sows itself anew.

A man's perfection is his work.

The Christian must be consumed by the conviction of the infinite beauty of holiness and the infinite damnability of sin.

That monstrous tuberosity of civilised life, the capital of England.

Rightly viewed no meanest object is insignificant; all objects are as windows through which the philosophic eye looks into infinitude itself.

We are not altogether here to tolerate. We are here to resist, to control and vanquish withal.

In a different time, in a different place, it is always some other side of our common human nature that has been developing itself. The actual truth is the sum of all these.

The greatest fault is to be conscious of none.

No good book, or good thing of any sort, shows its best face at first.

Let a man try faithfully, manfully to be right; he will grow daily more and more right. It is at bottom the condition on which all men have to cultivate themselves.

Parties on the back of Parties, at war with the world and with each other.

Friendship, in the old heroic sense of that term, no longer exists. It is in reality no longer expected or recognized as a virtue among men.

Hurricane Katrina reiterated the need for [access to] medical records, ... ... But there's going to be a lot more needed than $4 million.

For me, our beaches have always been a source of personal inspiration.

Unbeknownst to a lot of us, our children actually listen to just about everything we say and, even more so, watch everything we do. They notice the choices we make and the company we keep.

I want to make that a reality, ... The idea is to create office space in the unused portions of the station to be leased, hopefully by ING. That would provide a cash flow to Amtrak.

Wellness is cheaper than illness. It costs us time and money when children get sick.

It is more blessed to give than to receive, and therefore less blessed to receive than to give.

O Heavenly Father, convert my religion from a name to a principle! Bring all my thoughts and movements into an habitual reference to Thee!

There are no moral blanks; there are no neutral characters.

Shakespeare is an intellectual miracle.

Enthusiasm is a virtue rarely to be met with in seasons of calm and unruffled prosperity.

It is easier to make money than to save it. One is exertion, the other, self-denial.

A coxcomb is four-fifths affectation and one-fifth vanity.

Loud-dressing men and women have also loud characters.

People have no right to make fools of themselves, unless they have no relations to blush for them.

Self-possession is the backbone of authority.

Every man's religion is his own, and nobody else's business.

As soon as a woman begins to dress "loud," her manners and conversation partake of the same element.

Women will sometimes confess their sins, but I never knew one to confess her faults.

Money is a necessity; so is dirt.

He who sports compliments, unless he takes good aim, may miss his mark, and be wounded by the recoil of his own weapon.

Lawyers are like spiders, they've eat up all the flies, and I guess they'll have to eat each other soon.

One of the old philosophers says that it is the part of wisdom to sometimes seem a fool; but in our day there are too many ready-made ones to render this a desirable policy.

A brave man is sometimes a desperado: a bully is always a coward.

We can do without any article of luxury we have never had; but when once obtained, it is not in human natur' to surrender it voluntarily.

Look not to a woman's head for her brains, but rather to her heart.

A woman who wants a charitable heart wants a pure mind.

Fun has no limits. It is like the human race and face; there is a family likeness among all the species, but they all differ.

Nature's bank-dividends.

Impossible desires are the height of unreason.

Avarice fills its purse at the expense of its belly.

We reckon hours and minutes to be dollars and cents.

Haste to thie kiste, thie onlie dortoure bedde.Cale, as the claie whiche will gre on thie hedde,Is Charitie and Love aminge highe elves;Knightis and Barons live for pleasure and themselves.

Put a thorn in every enjoyment, a worm in every gourd, that would either prevent my being wholly thine, or in any measure retard my progress in the divine life.

Do right! and thou hast naught to fear;Right hath a power that makes thee strong.The night is dark, but light is near;The grief is short, the joy is long.

For he that but conceives a crime in thought, Contracts the danger of an actual fault.