R.S. Thomas Quotes

Whether the law of marriage be instituted or not, the dictate of nature and virtue seems to be an early attachment to one woman.

The germs of existence contained in this spot of earth, with ample food, and ample room to expand in, would fill millions of worlds in the course of a few thousand years.

Man cannot live in the midst of plenty.

Capitals accumulate faster than population

The most effectual encouragement to population is, the activity of industry, and the consequent multiplication of the national products.

The first business of philosophy is to account for things as they are; and till our theories will do this, they ought not to be the ground of any practical conclusion.

The doctrine of population has been conspicuously absent, not because I doubt in the least its truth and vast importance, but because it forms no part of the direct problem of economics.

It is not the most pleasant employment to spend eight hours a day in a counting house.

It accords with the most liberal spirit of philosophy to suppose that not a stone can fall, or a plant rise, without the immediate agency of divine power.

It is also very important to observe, that menial servants are absolutely necessary to make the resources of the higher and middle classes of society efficient in the demand for material products.

The moon is not kept in her orbit round the earth, nor the earth in her orbit round the sun, by a force that varies merely in the inverse ratio of the squares of the distances.

I feel no doubt whatever that the parish laws of England have contributed to raise the price of provisions and to lower the real price of labour.

In general it may be said that demand is quite as necessary to the increase of capital as the increase of capital is to demand.

For the sake of goodness and love, man shall let death have no sovereignty over his thoughts.

Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?

…What our age needs, what it demands, what it will create for itself, is—terror.

He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word.

He thought what a fine thing it was that people made music all over the world, even in the strangest settings – probably even on polar expeditions.

The basics of acting are really better in America than in Europe. Just the basic "fake laugh" is impossible to get in France.

I think every artist needs a rule that's stupid but that helps him, like a deadline would.

In France, anyone can use your music on like a TV show or whatever - they don't need to ask permission. It's almost like a child when it has its own life.

In France a lot of songs were ruined by their associations with commercials. But so far no Apple commercial has ruined a song for me.

The more you say no the more people ask.

One of my favorite French singers, Alain Bashung, was the expert at creating his own universe; no one knows what he's talking about, even he doesn't know because it's so poetic.

I think Björk is playing on the fact she knows she's eccentric and she accepts the fact.

The truth is, I don't really have a type of girl.

I wasn't into acting when I was a kid. Maybe because I was shy or it didn't occur to me.

I think there are certain technical things about acting that change between working in film and television. Everything definitely slows down and we have more time in film.

Art's primary social function is to define the communal self, which includes redefining it when the community is changing.

Many modern scholars have found the asceticism expressed in Plato unacceptable; it does not sound like the advice of a reasonable man in the Cartesian tradition.

To Plato the desire for excessive and special foods ... is a hindrance to the soul's attainment of intelligence.

Plato rarely if ever states anything about himself clearly.

The essence of sport is courage.

I'm driven. I have the opportunity to change people's lives.

The true value of sport is more than the skills that young people learn.

I am working hard to ensure that working families can continue to afford to live in our city.

He was a man of great statue

The artist should preach nothing-not even his own autonomy. His art should speak its own truth, and in so doing it will be in harmony with every other kind of truth- moral, metaphysical, mystical.

Power always protects the good of some at the expense of all others.

I myself am part of the weather and part of the climate and part of the place … It is certainly part of my life of prayer.

The evil in the world is all of our own making, and it proceeds entirely from our ruthless, senseless, wasteful, destructive, and suicidal neglect of our own being.

The only right way: to love and serve the man of the modern world, but not simply to succumb, with him, to all his illusions about the world.

Today will never come again.

Be still: There is no longer any need of comment. It was a lucky wind That blew away his halo with his cares, A lucky sea that drowned his reputation.

Humility sets us free to do what is really good, by showing us our illusions and withdrawing our will from what was only an apparent good.

If we have not silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest God, does not bless our work.

We love the things we pretend to laugh at.

Indeed, it is a kind of quintessence of pride to hate and fear even the kind and legitimate approval of those who love us! I mean, to resent it as a humiliating patronage.

If there was no other proof of the infinite patience of God, a very good one could be found in His toleration of the pictures that are painted of Him.

We refuse love, and reject society, in so far as it seems, in our own perverse imagination, to imply some obscure kind of humiliation