R.S. Thomas Quotes

It's funny but... you're sort of a moving target for fortune and you never know when it will befall you.

An indefinable something is to be done in a way nobody knows how at a time nobody knows when that will accomplish nobody knows what.

There is a good deal too strange to be believed nothing is too strange to have happened.

His religion at best is an anxious wish - like that of Rebelais a great Perhaps.

A good life is the only religion.

Welcome death quoth the rat when the trap fell.

The pleasures of the rich are bought with the tears of the poor.

The self is not something that one finds. It is something one creates.

The great law of culture: Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea.

He that would have fruit must climb the tree.

The harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value.

Every noble crown is and on Earth will forever be a crown of thorns.

No man is demolished but by himself.

"They say so" is half a lie.

If I had read as much as other men I should have known no more than they.

The great tragedy of Science: the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

We hear of a silent generation more concerned with security than integrity with conforming than performing with imitating than creating.

We carry with us the wonders we seek without us.

What the collective age wants allows and approves is the perpetual holiday from the self.

Do not let your peace depend on the hearts of men whatever they say about you good or bad you are not because of it another man for as you are you are.

What thou art that thou art.

Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a man deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost.

Every tub must stand on its own bottom.

The proverb warns that "You should not bite that hand that feeds you." But maybe you should if it prevents you from feeding yourself.

Silence is deep as Eternity speech shallow as Time.

Is nothing in life ever straight and clear the way children see it?

Putting aside all the fancy words and academic doubletalk the basic reason for having a military is to do two jobs-to kill people and to destroy the works of man.

He that falls into sin is a man that grieves at it is a saint that boasteth of it is a devil.

Skepticism means not intellectual doubt alone but moral doubt.

Every noble crown is and on earth will ever be a crown of thorns.

John Brown's body lies a mould'ring in the grave His soul goes marching on.

The object of oratory alone is not truth but persuasion.

Speech is silvern silence is golden.

Soul appears when we make room for it.

The ambitious climbs high and perilous stairs and never cares how to come down the desire of rising hath swallowed up his fear of a fall.

Never face facts if you do you'll never get up in the morning.

Oh how quickly the world's glory passes away.

You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money compliments or publicity.

Of a truth men are mystically united: a mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one.

Oh! would I were dead now Or up in my bed now To cover my head now And have a good cry!

Where will I be five years from now? I delight in not knowing. That's one of the greatest things about life-its wonderful surprises.

Curiosity is a lust of the mind.

The past is a guidepost not a hitching post.

If we are ever to enjoy life now is the time not tomorrow or next year. ... Today should always be our most wonderful day.

The best preparation for a better life next year is a full complete harmonious joyous life this year.

Worrying is the most natural and spontaneous of all human functions. It is time to acknowledge this perhaps even to learn to do it better.

It is better to have a hen tomorrow than an egg today.

Let time that makes you homely make you sage.

What a day may bring a day may take away.