R.S. Thomas Quotes

Habit is overcome by habit.

Love is a great thing, a good above all others, which alone maketh every burden light.

Praise adds nothing to your holiness, nor does blame take anything from it. You are what you are, and you cannot be said to be better than you are in God's sight.

The enemy is more easily overcome if he be not suffered to enter the door of our hearts, but be resisted without the gate at his first knock.

Everything is a symbol of something, it seems, until proven otherwise.

The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge.

If you bear the cross unwillingly, you make it a burden, and load yourself more heavily; but you must bear it.

If you are ever in doubt as to whether to kiss a pretty girl, always give her the benefit of the doubt.

No man sees far, most see no farther than their noses.

Only the person of worth can recognize the worth in others.

Activate yourself to duty by remembering your position, who you are, and what you have obliged yourself to be.

The first duty of man is that of subduing fear.

Whatsoever is done in charity, however small and of no reputation it be, bringeth forth good fruit.

Anyone who thinks hard work will never hurt you has never had to pay to have it done. Jesus now has many lovers of his Heavenly Kingdom, but few bearers of his cross.

The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.

A man who will not leave his room because he does not know how, or is afraid to open the door, is trapped just the same whether or not the door is locked.

Oh, give us the man who sings at his work.

Scruples, temptations, and fears, and cutting perplexities of the heart, are often the lot of the most excellent persons.

The best effect of any book is that it excites the reader to self activity.

There are but two ways of paying debt: Increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying out.

Never be entirely idle; but either be reading, or writing, or praying or meditating or endeavoring something for the public good.

What most of all hinders heavenly consolation is that you are too slow in turning yourself to prayer.

Better be courted and jilted Than never be courted at all.

All men are frail; but thou shouldst reckon none so frail as thyself.

A prudent pharmacist often vends something for your complaint. But wine merchant you do this invariably.

Charity is without fear: having given all that it has, it has nothing left to lose.

The least of the work of learning is done in classrooms.

If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.

Our knowledge of God is perfected by gratiitude: we are thankful and rejoice in the experience of the truth that He is love.

To love blindly is to love selfishly, because the goal of such love is not the real advantage of the beloved but only the exercise of love in our own souls.

Wheels of fire, cosmic, rich, full-bodied honest victories over desperation.

It is a wise mans part, rather to avoid sickness, than to wish for medicines.

Most people know nothing about learning; many despise it. Dummies reject as too hard whatever is not dumb.

What is deferred is not avoided.

Lawyers-a profession it is to disguise matters.

A good tale evil told were better untold, and an evil take well told need none other solicitor.

We are an episode between two oblivions.

If I thought that everything I did was determined by my circumstancse and my psychological condition, I woudl feel trapped.

Cowards are scared with threatenings; boys are whipped into confession; but a steady mind acts of itself, ne'er asks the body counsel.

War is the gambling table of governments, and citizens the dupes of the game.

Wrong cannot have a legal descendant.

The right of voting for representatives , is the primary right by which other rights are protected.

Every proprietor owes to the community a ground-rent for the land which he holds.

Man did not enter society to be worse off, or to have fewer rights, but rather to have those rights better secured

Wisdom degenerates in governments as governments increase in age.

Death is not the monarch for the dead, but of the dying. The moment he obtains a conquest he loses a subject.

The graceful pride of truth knows no extremes, and preserves, in every latitude of life, the right-angled character of man.

Tears may soothe the wounds they cannot heal.

It stands to reason: Higher wages means higher loyalty and morale, which means higher productivity, which means a more profitable business.

I don't have dry seasons, because I don't allow them.