R.S. Thomas Quotes

I was born to speak. I got in trouble as a kid for talking. I already knew it was a strength.

The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral and social being

Lent is a time to renew wherever we are in that process that I call the divine therapy. It's a time to look what our instinctual needs are, look at what the dynamics of our unconscious are.

Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind.

Sin in a wicked man is like poison in a serpent; it is in its natural place.

Divine life is basically the inner freedom to choose the right and the good spontaneously.

One single object . . . [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation.

When I was in high school, I wasn't a troublemaker. I didn't get in fights. I was a good student and I had a lot of friends.

FORGET ABOUT YOUR PAST! MAKE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE THE BEST OF YOUR LIFE!

Distinctions drawn by the mind are not necessarily equivalent to distinctions in reality.

Only disaster can follow divided counsels and opposing wills.

I think what I have done is claimed the space and pushed it forward as much as I can in relationship to who I am and how I live my life.

I had just settled Grandma on her folding chair and popped open our box lunch when the corpse floated by.

I am not the champion of lost causes, but the champion of causes not yet won.

The rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people.

God often gives in one brief moment that which He has for a long time denied.

There is no man alone, because every man is a Microcosm, and carries the whole world about him.

I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Archilles; Fortune hath not one place to hit me.

I've never been married, and I've never been divorced. But I have had some very serious relationships. I was engaged twice. The way that those relationships ended, it was very very heartbreaking.

Strain your brain more than your eye... You can copy a thing to a certain limit. Then you must use intellect.

Satan often paints sin with virtue's colors.

A sunny temper [an attitude of gratitude for what blessings and mercies there are] gilds the edges of life's blackest cloud.

These are but dreaming men. Breathe, and they fade.

The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism.

After the first death, there is no other.

Never be lucid, never state, if you would be regarded great.

A good poem is a contribution to reality.

The hypocrite, certainly, is a secret atheist; for if he did believe there was a God, he durst not be so bold as to deceive Him to His face.

[F]alsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.

He who reforms himself, has done much toward reforming others; and one reason why the world is not reformed, is, because each would have others make a beginning, and never thinks of himself doing it.

A man may be so bold of his predestination, that he forget his conversation.

Do not try to find a place free from temptations and troubles. Rather, seek a peace that endures even when you are beset by various temptations and tried by much adversity.

Bad government is the natural product of rule by those who believe government is bad.

We have always been thinking about different ways to perform electronic music, i.e. music made with machines.

Where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valor to dare to live.

Aid is the process by which the poor in rich countries subsidize the rich in poor countries.

The natural man cannot but resist the Lord's offering to help him; yet that resistance is infallibly overcome in the elect, by converting grace.

But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.

The gospel casts out a rope to hale sinners to land; but the sinner has no hands to lay hold on it; his very faith must be wrought in him by the Spirit.

There is no true believing or trusting to the report of the gospel, but what is the effect of the working of a divine power on the soul for that end.

It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand alters the centre of gravity of the universe.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

In our society, marriage is not simply a governmental institution; it is a religious institution as well, today's decision might change the former, but it cannot change the latter.

Consider that the trials and troubles, the calamities and miseries, the crosses and losses that you meet with in this world, are all the hell that ever you shall have.

The thing that bothered me when I was in college was that I saw myself rejecting the way of life that got me to where I was.

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

There is no substitute for excellence. Not even success.

What multitudes, O Lord, do this day join hands with Pelagius in contending for free will and in fighting ... free grace.

Self-conquest is really self-surrender. Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he does not possess.

Government as well as religion has furnished its schisms, its persecutions and its devices for fattening idleness on the earnings of the people.