R.S. Thomas Quotes

The man who cannot laugh is not only fit for treasons strategems and spoils but his whole life is already a treason and a stratagem.

Be you never so high the law is above you.

Better give a shilling than lend and lose half a crown.

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must like men undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

If way to the Better there be it exacts a full look at the Worst.

Is not this the true romantic feeling - not to desire to escape life but to prevent life from escaping you.

Life is better than death I believe if only because it is less boring and because it has fresh peaches in it.

Population when unchecked increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence only increases in an arithmetical ratio.

The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer but rather what they miss.

It is love not reason that is stronger than death.

One life - a little gleam of Time between two Eternities.

Alas! how light a cause may move dissention between hearts that love!

Love the itch and a cough cannot be hid.

Love lives on propinquity but dies on contact.

The heart that has truly loved never forgets but as truly loves on to the close.

We arc the miracle of miracles the great inscrutable mystery of God.

Keep thy eyes wide open before marriage and half shut afterward.

Sickness is felt but health not at all.

A human being who is first of all an invalid is all body therein lies his inhumanity and his debasement.

Most things get better by themselves. Most things in fact are better by morning.

That which is bitter to endure may be sweet to remember.

To live in hearts we leave behind Is not to die.

Don't you remember sweet Alice Ben Bolt? Sweet Alice whose hair was so brown Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile And trembl'd with fear at your frown!

A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue but moderation in principle is always a vice.

Be the business never so painful you may have it done for money.

God makes and apparel shapes: but it's money that finishes the man.

No shade no shine no butterflies no bees No fruits no flowers no leaves no birds November!

Sweet April showers Do bring May flowers.

He should as he list be able to prove the moon is green cheese.

Of moral purpose I see no trace in Nature. That is an article of exclusively human manufacture - and very much to our credit.

Here hath been dawning another blue day: think wilt thou let it slip useless away?

'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view And robes the mountain in its azure hue.

Music first and last should sound well should allure and enchant the ear. Never mind the inner significance.

After a debauch of thundershower the weather takes the pledge and signs it with a rainbow.

What mighty battles have I seen and heard waged between the trees and the west wind - an Iliad fought in the fields of air.

When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with its fall but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.

We lose our souls if we lose the experience of the forest the butterflies the song of the birds if we can't see the stars at night.

O pilot! 'tis a fearful night There's danger on the deep.

The image of God cut in ebony.

We can live without our friends but not without our neighbors.

Burke said there were three Estates in Parliament but in the reporters' gallery yonder there sat a fourth Estate more important than them all.

To bear is to conquer our fate.

What cannot be altered must be borne not blamed.

Send your noble blood to market and see what it will bring.

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view and robes the mountain in its azure hue.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.

Minutes are worth more than money. Spend them wisely.

Our grand business undoubtedly is not to see what lies dimly at a distance but to do what lies clearly at hand.

Time is the silent never-resting thing ... rolling rushing on swift silent like an all-embracing oceantide on which we and all the universe swim.