R.S. Thomas Quotes

In mathematics the complicated things are reduced to simple things. So it is in painting.

How beautiful an old woman's skin is! All those wrinkles!

As new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.

Half of the failures in life come from pulling one's horse when he is leaping.

Harry Truman proves that old adage that any man can become President of the United States.

Peace will never be entirely secure until men everywhere have learned to conquer poverty without sacrificing liberty or security.

Smoking too much makes me nervous. Must lasso my natural tendency to acquire such habits. Holding heavy cigar constantly in my mouth has deformed my upper lip, it has a sort of Havana curl.

I like young girls. Their stories are shorter.

The mountains paralleled the valley and the snowy peaks were extending with fall to the valley floor.

X-rays ... I am afraid of them. I stopped experimenting with them two years ago, when I came near to losing my eyesight and Dally, my assistant practically lost the use of both of his arms.

If you're not in New York, you're camping out.

A history in which every particular incident may be true may on the whole be false.

Self-contemplation is infallibly the symptom of disease.

Dogs who chase cars evidently see them as large, unruly ungulates badly in need of discipline and shepherding.

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.

Why compare yourself with others? No one in the entire world can do a better job of being you than you.

The legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions.

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent. It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.

Centering prayer is a training in letting go.

It wasn't about mechanics; it was about a feeling, wanting to give someone something, which in turn was really gratifying. That really resonated for me.

No wife can endure a gambling husband-unless he is a steady winner.

There is no traffic congestion on the straight and narrow path.

You cannot afford to live in potential for the rest of your life; at some point, you have to unleash the potential and make your move(ment).

When you die, Die on "E".... Leave no Dream behind... Leave NO Opportunity behind! Accomplish everything you can.

Man, it is not thy works, which are mortal, infinitely little, and the greatest no greater than the least, but only the spirit thou workest in, that can have worth or continuance.

When you're excited about what you do, and nobody gotta give you a dime, that's next level.

Thought that can merge wholly into feeling, feeling that can merge wholly into thought - these are the artist's highest joy.

Don't question your wife's judgment; look who she married.

One has the idea of a stupid man as perfectly healthy and ordinary, and of illness as making one refined and clever and unusual.

If you think you know it all, you are missing something.

Caution is the lower story of prudence.

There is in man a higher than love of happiness; he can do without happiness, and instead thereof find blessedness.

We've been taught to believe that actions speak louder than words. But I think words speak pretty loud all of our lives; we carry these words in our head.

I like to drink young wines, wines which are robust and have a lot of forward fruit to them.

Fame lost its appeal for me when I went into a public restroom and an autograph seeker handed me a pen and paper under the stall door.

Grief even in a child hates the light and shrinks from human eyes.

Redeem the misspent time that's past, And live this day as 'twere thy last.

When you want success as bad as you want to breathe, then you will be successful.

Being willing to change allows you to move from a point of view to a viewing point - a higher, more expansive place, from which you can see both sides.

The thinking man always finds himself in a gigantic orphanage in which people are continually proving to him that he has no parents.

I have better use for my brain than to poison it with alcohol. To put alcohol in the human brain is like putting sand in the bearings of an engine.

Nature made us - nature did it all - not the gods of the religions.

I take a lot of pitches. Some guys hate to do that.

The great silent man! Looking round on the noisy inanity of the world,--words with little meaning, actions with little worth,--one loves to reflect on the great Empire of Silence.

He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked.

Any mature, spiritually sensitive view of marriage must be built on the foundation of mature love rather than romanticism. But this immediately casts us into a countercultural pursuit.

Government owes its birth to the necessity of preventing and repressing the injuries which the associated individuals had to fear from one another.

Free speech is the cornerstone to every right we have.

I'll tell you how I handle stress. I say-This too shall pass. You've got to try to stay cool and admit when you're wrong, and tell them when you're right.

Do not try to be what you are not, be what you are. The Universe has a built in truth recognizer, what ever is false about you, it will expose to light, either through you or others, pay attention.