R.S. Thomas Quotes

I haven't failed. I've just found 10, 000 ways that don't work.

Everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue.

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Vir

No people who are ignorant can be truly free.

The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.--The Fruit Hunters

That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798)

In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitudefrom achieving his goal.Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude.

In a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance

The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to.

The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrant. It is its natural manure.

I haven't failed, I have just found 10, 000 ways that won't work.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

...the majority in a democracy has no more right to tyrannize over a minority than, under a different system, the latter would to oppress the former.

Jefferson was ambivalent about executive power – until he bore executive responsibility.

All are dead, and ourselves left alone amidst a new generation whom we know not, and who know us not.

I consider him [Alexander von Humboldt] the most important scientist whom I have met.

I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it

Everything yields to diligence

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.

When describing the University of Virginia: Here, We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

Enlighten the people, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress.

Advertisements contain the only truth to be relied on in a newspaper.

I am long on ideas but short on time. I expect to live only about a hundred years.

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

No knowledge can be more satisfactory to a man than that of his own frame its parts their functions and actions.

I succeed him no one could replace him.

No government ought to be without censors and where the press is free no one ever will.

I am mortified to be told that in the United States of America the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry and of criminal inquiry too.

In questions of power let no more be heard of confidence in man but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.

Be courageous! ... I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has come out stronger and more prosperous. Be as brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward.

I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.

Results? Why man I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.

They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has but I notice he usually blunders forward.

Results! Why man I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.

That government is best which governs the least because its people discipline themselves.

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us but is always the result of a good conscience good health occupation and freedom in all just pursuits.

Happiness is not being pained in body nor troubled in mind.

It is neither wealth nor splendor but tranquility and occupation which give happiness.

I steer my bark with hope in my heart leaving fear astern.

Of all calamities this is the greatest.

The sword of the law should never fall but on those whose guilt is so apparent as to be pronounced by their friends as well as foes.

The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.

I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

I do not take a single newspaper nor read one a month and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.