R.S. Thomas Quotes

Logicians may reason about abstractions. But the great mass of men must have images. The strong tendency of the multitude in all ages and nations to idolatry can be explained on no other principle.

In Plato's opinion, man was made for philosophy; in Bacon's opinion, philosophy was made for man.

A church is disaffected when it is persecuted, quiet when it is tolerated, and actively loyal when it is favored and cherished.

History begins in novel and ends in essay.

Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve!

How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old.

The whole history of Christianity proves that she has little indeed to fear from persecution as a foe, but much to fear from persecution as an ally.

He [Charles II] was utterly without ambition. He detested business, and would sooner have abdicated his crown than have undergone the trouble of really directing the administration.

A system in which the two great commandments are to hate your neighbor and to love your neighbor's wife.

The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm.

The English doctrine that all power is a trust for the public good.

We must judge of a form of government by it's general tendency, not by happy accidents

We weep when we are born, Not when we die!

After a debauch of thunder-shower, the weather takes the pledge and signs it with a rainbow.

How fugitive and brief is mortal life between the budding and the falling leaf.

What is slang in one age sometimes goes into the vocabulary of the purist in the next.

The fate of the worm refutes the pretended ethical teaching of the proverb, which assumes to illustrate the advantage of early rising and does so by showing how extremely dangerous it is.

Gracious to all, to none subservient, Without offense he spoke the word he meant

Decoration Day is the most beautiful of our national holidays.... The grim cannon have turned into palm branches, and the shell and shrapnel into peach blossoms.

O Liberty...! is it well To leave the gates unguarded?

When friends are at your hearthside met, Sweet courtesy has done its most If you have made each guest forget That he himself is not the host.

Hebe's here, May is here! The air is fresh and sunny; And the miser-bees are busy Hoarding golden honey.

The ocean moans over dead men's bones.

Turn on its noiseless hinges, delicate sleep!

We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed The white of their leaves, the amber grain Shrunk in the wind,-and the lightning now Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain.

Great thoughts in crude, unshapely verse set forth lose half their preciousness, and ever must, unless the diamond with its own rich dust be cut and polished, it seems little worth.

All of us are slaves to the prejudices of our own dimension.

Hip-hop has always been exciting and interesting to us.

America is a new country, and maybe patriotism helps Americans create unity, since it is a melting pot. But nationalism in Europe has a strong history, as you may know.

The thousands of clips on internet are better to us than any DVD that could have been released.

I prefer Offenbach to Bach often.

Movie music is noise. It's even more painful than my sciatica.

Without question the most unpopular medium of musical sound in the world.

When asked whether he minded if someone smoked in a non-smoking compartment. Certainly not if you don't object if I'm sick.

If she is attractive, I can't perform with her; if she is not, then I won't.

Magical music never leaves the memory.

No operatic star has yet died soon enough for me.

The grand tune is the only thing in music that the great public really understands.

Nothing but disaster follows from applause.

What is ridiculous about human beings, Doctor,' the prince said, 'is actually their total incapacity to be ridiculous

We see quite clearly that what happens to the nonhuman, happens to the human. What happens to the outer world, happens to the inner world.

The present urgency is to begin thinking within the context of the whole planet, the integral earth community with all its human and other-than-human components.

The dark in soul see in the universe their own shadow; the shattered spirit can only reflect external beauty in form as untrue and broken as itself.

There will be no Christian but what will have a Gethsemane, but every praying Christian will find that there is no Gethsemane without its angel!

Nothing can occur beyond the strength of faith to sustain, or, transcending the resources of religion, to relieve.

Baseball means Spring's Here. Football means Winter's Coming.

Any person claiming to be a baseball fan who does not also claim to have invented the quickest, simplest and most complete method of keeping score probably is a fraud.

I may be the only golfer never to have broken a single putter, if you don't count the one I twisted into a loop and threw into a bush.

Baseball is religion without the mischief.

He who stands upon his own strength will never stand.