R.S. Thomas Quotes

He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way, Tormenting himself with his prickles.

When Eve upon the first of Men The apple press'd with specious cant, Oh! what a thousand pities then That Adam was not Adamant!

To attempt to advise conceited people is like whistling against the wind.

It is part of the business of life to be affable and pleasing to those whom either nature, chance or circumstance has made our companions.

The times are never so bad but that a good man can make shift to live in them.

By reason of gifts and bribes the offices be given to rich men, which should rather have been executed by wise men.

That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.

The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.

The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.

He is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.

At the heart of every major political upheaval lies a fiscal revolution.

What is most important almost always involves the people around us.

Be of good cheer. The future is as bright as your faith.

Stick to a task 'til it sticks to you. . .for beginners are many, but finishers few.

So frequently we mistakenly believe that our children need more things, when in reality their silent pleadings are simply for more of our time.

The Constitution cannot protect us unless we protect the Constitution.

Liberals are very broadminded: they are always willing to give careful consideration to both sides of the same side

...Politics is not about facts. It is about what politicians can get people to believe.

Extrapolations are the last refuge of a groundless argument.

An independent judiciary does not mean judges independent of the Constitution from which they derive their power or independent of the laws that they are sworn to uphold.

Men often treat others worse than they treat themselves, but they rarely treat anyone better. It is the height of folly to expect consideration and decency from a person who mistreats himself.

Be very, very careful what you put into that head of yours, because you will never, ever get it out.

And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.

Be courageous. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has emerged from these stronger and more prosperous. Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward!

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

If it were not for hopes, the heart would break.

Women were like rivers, their banks were unreachable, the night often rang with the cries of the drowned.

By choosing our path, we choose our destination.

Your mind is a cupboard and you stock the shelves.

Abused patience turns to fury.

Here's what I see all across this great city - people working together to make Boston a better place to live and to raise children, to grow and pursue dreams.

Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades.

Not what you possess but what you do with what you have, determines your true worth.

One monster there is in the world, the idle man.

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.

You will never be an inwardly religious and devout man unless you pass over in silence the shortcomings of your fellow men, and diligently examine your own weaknesses.

Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer.

the soul of conversation is sympathy

Money doesn't make the man. Some people have money, and some people are rich.

Silence is not an absence of sound but rather a shifting of attention toward sounds that speak to the soul.

There is no way to re-enchant our lives in a disenchanted culture except by becoming renegades from that culture and planting the seeds for a new one.

He that can work is born to be king of something.

A recurring ideal, I find, is that of simplicity. At times there comes the desire to write with great precision and clarity, words so simple and moving that they bring tears to the eyes.

It’s very strange how electronic music formatted itself and forgot that its roots are about the surprise, freedom, and the acceptance of every race, gender, and style of music into this big party.

I don't use the word minority because there is nothing minor about me.

Acting is the hardest job in the entire world. By far. Harder than ditch digging.

Laissez-faire, supply and demand-one begins to be weary of all that. Leave all to egotism, to ravenous greed of money, of pleasure, of applause-it is the gospel of despair.