R.S. Thomas Quotes

What studies please, what most delight, And fill men's thoughts, they dream them o'er at night.

When conflict becomes a win-lose contest in our minds, we immediately try to win.

It is hard to change our point of view in a conflict. Most often, it is because we are not nearly as interested in resolving the conflict and possibly creating a new "pearl" as we are in being right.

You don't have to be sick to get better! You don't have to have a bad attitude to get a better one.

A people without a language of its own, is only half a nation.

Educate, that you might be free. We are most anxious to get the quiet, strong minded people who are scattered throughout the country to see the force of this great truth.

They're trying to make fuel cells a reality. They want to bring the hydrogen economy to the United States.

Showing strength is different than showing muscle.

Security matters should not be entrusted to people who make decisions without weighing things up.

I don't want anybody to accuse me of taking advantage of the situation to pursue a particular political agenda.

One should never send soldiers on a mission based on just good will and good intent. Unfortunately, that can mean one has to stand by and watch human rights abuses take place.

From my perspective, the state has to assume responsibility for the integrity of international communications.

I am a big advocate of what is known as net neutrality. This means that providers are compelled to transmit content without political or commercial pre-selection.

I am a politician, but I am also a Christian.

There is a connection between the issue of refugees and the battle against the so-called Islamic State.

Each government minister views the circumstances of each issue differently. An interior minister has a different view of visa liberalization than does a foreign minister.

I see no constitutional problems with the identification, staving off and defusing of outside threats.

WikiLeaks is irritating and annoying for Germany, but not a threat. From an international perspective, I see their actions as totally irresponsible.

I stand for a strong state that safeguards freedom. I don't need to show muscle for that.

The Internet is a modern infrastructure that plays a key role in the future of the state.

Either the human being must suffer and struggle as the price of a more searching vision, or his gaze must be shallow and without intellectual revelation.

There is first the literature of KNOWLEDGE, and secondly, the literature of POWER. The function of the first is -- to teach; the function of the second is -- to move.

As is the inventor of murder, and the father of art, Cain must have been a man of first-rate genius.

A promise is binding in the inverse ratio of the numbers to whom it is made.

Often one's dear friend talks something which one scruples to call rigmarole.

So, then, Oxford Street, stonyhearted stepmother, thou that listenest to the sighs of orphans, and drinkest the tears of children, at length I was dismissed from thee.

The peace of nature and of the innocent creatures of god seems to be secure and deep, only so long as the presence of man and his restless and unquiet spirit are not there to trouble its sanctity.

No progressive knowledge will ever medicine that dread misgiving of a mysterious and pathless power given to words of a certain import.

Reserve is the truest expression of respect towards those who are its objects.

Far better, and more cheerfully, I could dispense with some part of the downright necessaries of life, than with certain circumstances of elegance and propriety in the daily habits of using them.

The mere understanding, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind and the most to be distrusted.

It is notorious that the memory strengthens as you lay burdens upon it, and becomes trustworthy as you trust it.

Rightly it is said of utter, utter misery, that it 'cannot be remembered'; itself, being a rememberable thing, is swallowed up in its own chaos.

Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

By the 1990s, longevity will be so improved that 150 years will be no unusual age to reach.

Never invest in a going concern until you know which way it is going.

The further you are from a problem, the smaller it gets.

When a man says his word is as his bond - get his bond.

The mind is like a parachute. In order to function, it first has to open.

I agree with Clyde Wilson that America can’t be saved or returned to its roots until the Republican Party is destroyed.

When the polar ice caps melt, my recording studio will rise up like an ark, and I'll float off into the drowned world like a character from a J.G. Ballard novel.

She blinded me with science and failed me in geometry.

I was very pleased to find that once I had records out music videos were starting to happen, so I directed some of my own music videos and got to experiment in other areas of expression.

It isn't cool to abuse the ability to swing.

If I were a 13-year-old and I wanted to create subversive art, I wouldn't go out and buy an electric guitar. I'd get myself a personal computer.

It's poetry in motion, when she turned her tender eyes to me.

She'd like to model or maybe act or star in a magazine. Before she signs any big contracts, she better learn how to read.

While I'm impressed with the length of those legs, she's not an intellectual giant.

Desires are nourished by delays.

The cross is the ladder to heaven.