R.S. Thomas Quotes

To him who has thought, or done, or suffered much, the level days of his childhood seem at an immeasureable distance, far off as the age of chivalry, or as the line of Sesostris.

If love be treasure, we'll be wondrous rich.

The poor sleep little.

The worst thing an old man can be is a lover.

I may boldly speak In right, though proud oppression will not hear me!

Ere man's corruptions made him wretched, he Was born most noble that was born most free; Each of himself was lord; and unconfin'd Obey'd the dictates of his godlike mind.

Love reigns a very tyrant in my heart.

Greatness, thou gaudy torment of out souls, The wise man's fetter, and the rage of fools.

And die with decency.

And for an apple damn'd mankind.

O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee To temper man: we had been brutes without you.

Nature is God's. Art is man's instrument.

Things were first made, then words.

European museums are all dependent on government financing. The moment European governments are under financial pressure, their budgets are cut.

We live in a world of crisis, of challenge, and ... it's in our galleries that we can unpack the civilizations that we're seeing the current manifestations of.

The Metropolitan Museum has all of our collections online, all our scholarly publications and catalogues since 1965. We have online features like the timeline of art history.

Schiaparelli’s collaborations with Dali and Cocteau as well as Prada’s Fondazione Prada push art and fashion ever closer, in a direct, synergistic, and culturally redefining relationship.

I would probably have been very content as a scholar to have carried on organising exhibitions and writing books and teaching.

The Great Hall at the Met is one of the great portals of the world... From there, you can walk in any direction to almost any culture.

I think for most Americans, knowledge of the Islamic world was pretty slight before 9/11, and then it was thrust upon us in one of America's darkest hours.

I am the Democratic Whip of the White House.

If you can get out in front of people with your ideas and your execution, you'll attract the people who need to be pulled in.

Great powers reserve the right to police bad actors in their neighborhoods.

Run with what works: Sell to the people who believe in you and are willing to take the chances and make the experience happen.

Youth is the seed time of good habits, as well in nations as in individuals.

It is a position not to be controverted, that the earth ... was and ever would have continued to be, the COMMON PROPERTY OF THE HUMAN RACE.

But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes?

Taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.

The first was a government of priestcraft, the second of conquerors, and the third of reason.

Government is a necessary evil

The protection of a man's person is more sacred than the protection of his property.

... in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.

There are matters in the Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice.

There exists in man a mass of sense lying in a dormant state, and which, unless something excites it to action, will descend with him, in that condition,to the grave.

Our present condition is, Legislation without law; wisdom without a plan; a constitution without a name; and, what is strangely astonishing, perfect independence contending for dependence.

Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance.

Therefore we say that a lying Spirit has been in the mouth of the writers of the books of the Bible.

Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions.

He who takes nature for his guide, is not easily beaten out of his argument

Liberty cannot be purchased by a wish.

No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing, knowing it to be wrong. He is attached to it on the belief of its being right; and when he sees it is not so, the prejudice will be gone.

Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character, which degrades it.

How strangely is antiquity treated! To answer some purposes it is spoken of as the times of darkness and ignorance, and to answer others, it is put for the light of the world.

It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself.

Commerce is no other than the traffic of two individuals, multiplied on a scale of number; and, by the same rule that Nature intended the intercourse of two, she intended that of all!

No falsehood is so fatal as that which is made an article of faith.

Truth never envelops itself in mystery, and the mystery in which it is at any time enveloped is the work of its antagonist, and never of itself.

Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off.

I would give worlds, if I had them, if The Age of Reason had never been published. O Lord, help! Stay with me! It is hell to be left alone.

It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxims, and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes.