R.S. Thomas Quotes

A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all.

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

All my life I have had the utmost admiration for suicides. I have always considered them superior to me in every way.

There is more pleasure in loving than in being beloved.

Love doesn't demand perfection, but it does ask you to give yourself with less reserve than you'd prefer.

He that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to Defender of the Faith, than George the Third.

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

So mayst thou live, dear! many years, In all the bliss that life endears

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.

Laughter is one of the very privileges of reason, being confined to the human species.

Love makes everything that is heavy light.

During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.

Silence, the great Empire of Silence: higher than all stars; deeper than the Kingdom of Death! It alone is great; all else is small.

The true contemplative is one who has discovered the art of finding leisure even in the midst of his work, by working with such a spirit of detachment and recollection that even his work is a prayer

True friends, like ivy and the wall Both stand together, and together fall.

True repentance includes sorrow for sin and contrition of heart. It breaks the heart with sighs and sobs and groans.

You have to imagine a waiting that is not impatient because it is timeless.

Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand.

The old men ask for more time; the young waste it. And the philosopher simply smiles, knowing there is none there.

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

From his neck down a man is worth a couple of dollars a day, from his neck up he is worth anything that his brain can produce.

Beethoven's last quartets were written by a deaf man and should only be listened to by a deaf man.

Probably, the single most prevalent claim advanced by the proponents of a new paradigm is that they can solve the problems that led the old one to a crisis.

Ecclesiasticism in science is only unfaithfulness to truth

Every conversation, every cuddle, aver kiss and caress, even every disagreement, adds another brushstroke to the picture of home you paint with the days and hours of your life.

Land. If you understand nothing else about the history of Indians in North America, you need to understand that the question that really matters is the question of land.

Genius, as an explosive power, beats gunpowder hollow.

They know what my standards are. They know what I need and how to get it to me, and they know how to communicate with me if for some reason they can't get it.

It's been over 15 years since I toured... over 12 years since I did any recording under my own name. I never really intended to take that long of a hiatus.

You don't know when inspiration is going to come. But you have to be aware of what's going on around you, so that at any moment, when inspiration happens, you're ready for it and you interpret it.

You might be smarter, your family might come from privilege, your daddy might own a company, but YOU WILL NOT OUT WORK ME!

No work nor deed of ours whatsoever, no not faith itself, can be the condition of the covenant of grace properly so called; but only Christ's fulfilling all righteousness.

Probably the '86 nationals. That was my first real national title and first real statement I ever made in figure skating, and my life changed after I returned.

Hope and optimism aren't just attitudes, they are life strategies.

What’s the secret to success? It’s no secret. You need a winning attitude, honesty and integrity, and a burning desire to succeed.

I'd been very partial to Malcolm X, particularly his self-help teachings.

Many come to bring their clothes to church rather than themselves.

Dr. Thomas Fuller wrote: "With foxes, we must play the fox".

A gracious soul may look through the darkest cloud and see God smiling on him.

The theologian considers sin mainly as an offence against God; the moral philosopher as contrary to reasonableness.

How seldom we recognize the sound when the bolt of our fate slides home.

Man is not made for the State but the State for man and it derives its just powers only from the consent of the governed.

Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.

It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed.

Humility, that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot.

Indeed, the distribution of wealth is too important an issue to be left to economists, sociologists, historians, and philosophers.

In every chain of reasoning, the evidence of the last conclusion can be no greater than that of the weakest link of the chain, whatever may be the strength of the rest.

Prayer is the passport to peace.

Capitalism is not an 'ism.' It is closer to being the opposite of an 'ism,' because it is simply the freedom of ordinary people to make whatever economic transactions they can mutually agree to.

Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.