R.S. Thomas Quotes

For man is not the creature and product of Mechanism; but, in a far truer sense, its creator and producer.

There is a majesty and mystery in nature, take her as you will. The essence of poetry comes breathing to a mind that feels from every province of her empire.

If an idea cannot move on its own, pushing it doesn't help; best to let it lie there.

The gift of language is the single human trait that marks us all genetically, setting us apart from the rest of life.

Faith is loyalty to some inspired teacher, some spiritual hero.

It hurts the spirit, somehow, to read the word environments, when the plural means that there are so many alternatives there to be sorted through, as in a market, and voted on.

Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such; it is an accident, not a property of man.

Suffering is basically the mind's refusal to accept reality as it is.

Most true believers, when faced with evidence that contradicts their beliefs, will hold on to those beliefs even more strongly.

I get called all kinds of things - an investigative comedian, a comedian activist - I've lost track of what my job title is.

People are even more wary of politicians and they are realizing that democracy isn't just about putting a cross on a ballot every four years, it's about deciding what you want and fighting for it.

Even in the meanest sorts of labor, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony the instant he sets himself to work.

We all behave as though what we think is true, is true.

A man has to be Joe McCarthy to be called ruthless . . . all a woman has to do is put you on hold.

Unity, agreement, is always silent or soft-voiced; it is only discord that loudly proclaims itself.

Midas-eared Mammonism, double-barrelled Dilettantism, and their thousand adjuncts and corollaries, are not the Law by which God Almighty has appointed this His universe to go.

Man's unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite.

A thought once awakened does not again slumber.

When new turns of behavior cease to appear in the life of the individual, its behavior ceases to be intelligent.

I don't like to talk much with people who always agree with me. It is amusing to coquette with an echo for a little while, but one soon tires of it.

To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.

When I first was conducting as guest conductor in Europe 25 years ago, I would propose doing American pieces and grudgingly it would be accepted from time to time.

Extreme volume in music very often disguises a lack of actually important content.

I knew what I was doing, but I never really considered the magnitude of how my images were transformative to people.

All that remains is for a few dots and commas to be crossed.

A person with half volition goes backwards and forwards, but makes no progress on even the smoothest of roads.

We have not the love of greatness, but the love of the love of greatness.

Painful for a person is rebellious independence, only in loving companionship with his associates does a person feel safe: Only in reverently bowing down before the higher does a person feel exalted.

Every noble crown is, and on Earth will forever be, a crown of thorns.

The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.

Do you think if the stamp-act is repealed, that the North Americans will be satisfied?

Man always worships something; always he sees the Infinite shadowed forth in something finite; and indeed can and must so see it in any finite thing, once tempt him well to fix his eyes thereon.

The leafy blossoming present time springs from the whole past, remembered and unrememberable.

I'm obviously not orthodox, I don't know how many real poets have ever been orthodox.

Great is journalism. Is not every able editor a ruler of the world, being the persuader of it?

Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom.

That there should one man die ignorant who had capacity for knowledge, this I call a tragedy.

Everybody's trusting in the heart like the heart don't lie...

Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.

Courtesy is the due of man to man; not of suit-of-clothes to suit-of-clothes.

No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.

For suffering and enduring there is no remedy, but striving and doing.

Show me the person you honor, for I know better by that the kind of person you are. For you show me what your idea of humanity is.

Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope.

Speech is of time, silence is of eternity.

Ill-health, of body or of mind, is defeat. Health alone is victory. Let all men, if they can manage it, contrive to be healthy!

There are remedies for all things but death.

Rich and rare were the gems she wore, And a bright gold ring on her hand she bore.

Two wings lift a person up from earthly concerns: Simplicity in intention, and Purity in feeling.

He that seeks here any other thing but simply God and the salvation of his soul, will find nothing but trouble and sorrow.