R.S. Thomas Quotes

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

If a due participation of office is a matter of right how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few: by resignation none.

No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any.

It is rare that the public sentiment decides immorally or unwisely and the individual who differs from it ought to distrust and examine well his own opinion.

If I could not go to Heaven but with a party I would not go there at all.

The people are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on office a rottenness begins in his conduct.

If a due participation of office is a matter of right how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few by resignation none.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost.

Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

A republican government is slow to move yet when once in motion its momentum becomes irresistible.

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

Equal rights for all special privileges for none.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans and must be that of every free state.

For God's sake let us freely hear both sides!

Peace commerce and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none.

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

I like the dreams for the future better than the history of the past.

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself as public property.

War is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.

No nation is drunken where wine is cheap and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage. It is in truth the only antidote to the bane of whiskey.

As a cure for worrying work is better than whiskey.

How much pain they have cost us the evils which have never happened.

Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

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

If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.

Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun.

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.

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

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson Author of the Declaration of American Independence Of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the University of Virginia.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just that his justice cannot sleep forever.

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

To my mind the old masters are not art their value is in their scarcity.

I have no ambition to govern men it is a painful and thankless office.

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

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

To live greatly, we must develop the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and triumph with humility.

The scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.

I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything.

In this marvelous dispensation of the fulness of times, our opportunities to give of ourselves are indeed limitless, but they are also perishable.

But a smooth and steadfast mind,   Gentle thoughts and calm desires,   Hearts with equal love combined,   Kindle never-dying fires:—  Where these are not, I despise  Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes.

Thinking is the hardest work anyone can do, which is probably the reason why we have so few thinkers.