R.S. Thomas Quotes

The only deadline is the one I give myself.

Where will I be five years from now? I delight in not knowing. That's one of the greatest things about life its wonderful surprises.

Everyone is a virtuoso on his own instrument, but together they add up to an intolerable cacophony.

One can only see what one observes, and one observes only things which are already in the mind.

Typhoid and swans - it all comes from the same place.

Fear comes with imagination, it’s a penalty, it’s the price of imagination.

All saints give testimony to the truth that without real effort, no one ever wins the crown.

For nothing, how little soever, that is suffered for God's sake, can pass without merit in the sight of God.

I think that nowadays there are more images in the world than world to be in the pictures.

Technology and comfort - having those, people speak of culture, but do not have it.

Minds, like parachutes, only function when they are open.

We have a great regard for old age when it is bottled.

Not less than two hours a day should be devoted to exercise.

Accomplishing something provides the only real satisfaction in life.

A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

Nothing can now be believed that is seen in a newspaper.

Nobody's as good as you when you do what you do. I need you to own the time that comes with that.

You think it's going to be easy? Forget about it! Don't even try to be successful!

I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man.

Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.

He, who steadily observes those moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven as to the dogmas in which they all differ.

A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.

It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.

A bad book about the love of God remains a bad book.

Most men die at age 25, but aren't buried until 70.

You can't have Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as your favorite composers. They simply define what music is!

A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.

Never trouble another for what you can do yourself

Nothing but free argument, raillery and even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.

If you can look up, you can get up.

Do not let your peace depend on what people say of you... True peace and joy is to be found in [Jesus] alone.

Generally, we are united in the belief that all rod design has been progressive and that the ideas about fly rods in the past were so bad as to make it amazing that people were able to fish at all.

Our beliefs in a rich future life are of little importance unless we coin them into a rich present life.

In the realm of evil thoughts none induces to sin as much as do thoughts that concern the pleasure of the flesh.

Life is a pure flame and we live by an invisible sun within us.

A black sheep is a biting beast.

You write who you are. But you also cheat, and youwrite what you want to be. It's embarrasing to be the guy who madethe movie, knowing you're not exactly who you want to be.

I've just had eighteen straight whiskies. I think that's the record.

Satan like a fisher, baits his hook according to the appetite of the fish.

Every man has two countries: his own and France.

If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation... to a continuance in union... I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate.

The devil does not tempt unbelievers and sinners who are already his own.

Film school is a complete con, because the information is there if you want it.

There is no act, however virtuous, for which ingenuity may not find some bad motive.

He who is proud of his knowledge, has gout in the wrong end.

He who demands mercy and shows none ruins the bridge over which he himself is to pass.

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the other.... The whole purpose of life is to live by love.

When money is exchanged for pregnancy, some believe, surrogacy comes close to organ-selling, or even baby-selling.

For a small reward, a man will hurry away on a long journey; while for eternal life, many will hardly take a single step.

There's no one to stop you but yourself