R.S. Thomas Quotes
I find brass bands have a melancholy sound. All right out of doors, of course - fifty miles away. Like bagpipes, they turn what had been a dream into a public nuisance.
It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
In science novelty emerges only with difficulty, manifested by resistance, against a background provided by expectation.
The God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?
People will never know how hard it is to get information, especially if it's locked up behind official doors where, if politicians had their way, they'd stamp 'top secret' on the color of the walls.
The only friends I have are the dead who have bequeathed their writings to me — I have no others.
Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.
I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.
I am sure that in estimating every man's value either in private or public life, a pure integrity is the quality we take first into calculation, and that learning and talents are only the second.
Whatever talents I possess may suddenly diminish or suddenly increase. I can with ease become an ordinary fool. I may be one now. But it doesn't do to upset one's own vanity.
Who is it that loves me and will love me forever with an affection which no chance, no misery, no crime of mine can do away? It is you, my mother.
I've always believed the world would be a better place if more people everywhere have a chance to shape their own future and realize their full potential. I think that is what life is about.
Prayer is not so much a way to find God as a way of resting in him...who loves us, who is near to us.
Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable.
For although God is right with us and in us and out of us and all through us, we have to go on journeys to find him.
The truth that many people never understand until it is too late is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer.
Pride thinks it's own happiness shines the brighter by comparing it with the misfortunes of others.
Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself.
Arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe and preserve order.
It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible.
Our modern democratic ideal is based on the hope that inequalities will be based on merit more than inheritance or luck.
We can’t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. For maximum happiness, peace, and contentment, may we choose a positive attitude.
Ideals are like the stars - you can't touch them with your hands, but by following them you reach your destination.
As we seek Christ, as we find Him, as we follow Him, we shall have the Christmas spirit, not for one fleeting day each year, but as a companion always.
To say that being non-judgmental is better than being judgmental is itself a judgment, and therefore a violation of principle.
The greatest analgesic, soporific, stimulant, tranquilizer, narcotic, and to some extent even antibiotic - in short, the closest thing to a genuine panacea - known to medical science is work.
Then summer fades and passes and October comes. We'll smell smoke then, and feel an unexpected sharpness, a thrill of nervousness, swift elation, a sense of sadness and departure.
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
