R.S. Thomas Quotes
Poetry is not the most important thing in life... I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading Agatha Christie and sucking sweets.
What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race?
We colour and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes bring in.
We have to keep company with supposedly bad characters if we are to survive and not succumb to mental atrophy. People of good character, so called, are the ones who end up boring us to death.
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.
Everyone can identify with a fragrant garden, with beauty of sunset, with the quiet of nature, with a warm and cozy cottage.
One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them.
To establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches.
A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart, for without kindness, there can be no true joy.
The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.
Every nation, every human being that came across earth had a song and sang in some way to their God.
There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
somewhere within sight of the tree of poetry that is eternity wearing the green leaves of time .
Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart. It shrinks up our capacity to love. It freezes up our power to give ourselves.
Fishing should be a ceremony that reaffirms our place in the natural world and helps us resist further estrangement from our origins.
Is not life in itself a thing of goodness, irrespective of whether the course it takes for us can be called a 'happy' one?
A good idea is never lost. Even though its originator or possessor may die, it will someday be reborn in the mind of another.
Sleep is like a drug. Take too much at a time and it makes you dopey. You lose time and opportunities.
In real life, every field of science is incomplete, and most of them - whatever the record of accomplishment during the last 200 years - are still in their very earliest stages.
Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are - hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones.
At a rehearsal I let the orchestra play as they like. At the concert I make them play as I like.
If an opera cannot be played by an organ grinder, it's not going to achieve immortality.
I take one decisive and immediate step, and resign my all to the sufficiency of my Saviour.
The more you give yourself to others, the more joy and peace will flow into your own life.
You are never truly together with one you love until the person in question is dead and actually inside you.
Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone and leave it alone.
I think that's the important thing - being aware of that inspiration and being able to interpret it into something that's meaningful for you.
Massive inequality, we have learned, isn't the best way to run an economy after all. And when you think about it, it's also profoundly ugly.
Remember, the difference between the world frozen over, in an ice ball, and the warming period we're in now is just 6 degrees centigrade. A change of just 1 degree can have a huge effect.
