Thomas Quotes

Humanity is God's constant preoccupation throughout the Bible. The Christian study of God cannot neglect God's own prevailing interest - the redemption of humanity. No Christian theology can speak only of God and never of human beings. ~ Thomas C. Oden

That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798) ~ Thomas Jefferson

No Discourse whatsoever, can End in absolute Knowledge of Fact. ~ Thomas Hobbes

This bread I break was once the oat,
This wine upon a foreign tree
Plunged in its fruit;
Man in the day or wind at night
Laid the crops low, broke the grape's joy. ~ Dylan Thomas

- Sorry, it's just... and odd choice.
- Well you don't choose who you fall for. It just happens.
- I don't think that's true. You should be in control of your emotions.
- Control, maybe, but that doesn't stop them from happening. I figure, sometimes you don't have to deny them.
- A friend of mine said keeping an emotion buried deep inside makes you stronger.
- Huh. Would you describe this friend as a *happy* person? ~ Thomas Siddell

It's nice to be able to forget. ~ Thomas Bangalter

It's a poor doctor who can't cure one disease without giving you another. ~ Thomas More

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself. ~ Thomas Carlyle

Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues. ~ Thomas Hobbes

Knowledge advances by steps, and not by leaps. ~ Thomas B. Macaulay

It is a difficult question, my friends, for any young man
that question I had to grapple with, and which thousands are weighing at the present moment in these uprising times
whether to follow uncritically the track he finds himself in, without considering his aptness for it, or to consider what his aptness or bent may be, and re-shape his course accordingly. I tried to do the latter, and I failed. But I don't admit that my failure proved my view to be a wrong one, or that my success would have made it a right one; though that's how we appraise such attempts nowadays
I mean, not by their essential soundness, but by their accidental outcomes. If I had ended by becoming like one of these gentlemen in red and black that we saw dropping in here by now, everybody would have said: 'See how wise that young man was, to follow the bent of his nature!' But having ended no better than I began they say: 'See what a fool that fellow was in following a freak of his fancy! ~ Thomas Hardy

What of Thought? The Crew had developed a kind of shorthand whereby they could set forth any visions that might come their way. Conversations at the Spoon had become little more than proper nouns, literary allusions, critical or philosophical terms linked in certain ways. Depending on how you arranged the building blocks at your disposal, you were smart or stupid. Depending on how others reacted they were In or Out. The number of blocks, however, was finite.
"Mathematically, boy," he told himself, "if nobody else original comes along, they're bound to run out of arrangements someday. What then?" What indeed. This sort of arranging and rearranging was Decadence, but the exhaustion of all possible permutations and combinations was death.
It scared Eigenvalue, sometimes. He would go in back and look at the set of dentures. Teeth and metals endure. ~ Thomas Pynchon

You didn't tell a lie, you just left a big hole in the truth. ~ Helen Thomas

I find it difficult to explain, but I'm quite ashamed of being an actress. ~ Kristin Scott Thomas

Minho had taught Thomas that speaking only wasted energy, so he concentrated on his pace and his breaths. ~ James Dashner

The point where you become free not to kill, not to exploit, not to destroy, not to compete, because you are no longer afraid of death or the devil or poverty or failure. If you discover this nakedness, you'd better keep it private. People don't like it. ~ Thomas Merton

Choose your friends with caution; plan your future with purpose, and frame your life with faith. ~ Thomas S. Monson

Serving throughout the world is a great missionary force going about doing good. Missionaries teach truth. They dispel darkness. They spread joy. They bring precious souls to Christ. ~ Thomas S. Monson

Children's Song
We live in our own world,
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.
And though you probe and pry
With analytic eye,
And eavesdrop all our talk
With an amused look,
You cannot find the centre
Where we dance, where we play,
Where life is still asleep
Under the closed flower,
Under the smooth shell
Of eggs in the cupped nest
That mock the faded blue
Of your remoter heaven. ~ R.S. Thomas

No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men. ~ Thomas Carlyle

A single opinion is comfortable. Comfort is hostile to change. Progress is uncomfortable because it changes the comfort. ~ Thomas Vato

You are a free man, and let no organization come between you and your best interests. Do not let any man, or any body of men, tell you where you shall work, or where you shall not work, when you shall work, or when, you shall not work. If a man wants to belong to a labor organization, let him belong. If he does not want to belong to a labor organization, let him have perfect liberty to stay out. You own yourself. Let no man put a manacle on your hand, or foot, or head, or heart. ~ Thomas De Witt Talmage

Greta Wickham. He used to say if only Nora and Greta were here now, we wouldn't be in this mess, even when there was no mess at all." "Oh, he talked very warmly about you," Peggy interjected, "and William Junior and Thomas had nothing but good words to say about Maurice Webster when he was teaching them. I remember one day Thomas had a temperature and we all wanted him to stay in bed and he wouldn't, oh no he wouldn't, because he had a double commerce class with Mr. Webster that he could not miss. You know they wanted Thomas to stay in Dublin when he qualified. Oh, he got offers with very good prospects! We told him he should consider ~ Colm Toibin

Life with a man is more businesslike after it, and money matters work better. And then, you see, if you have rows, and he turns you out of doors, you can get the law to protect you, which you can't otherwise, unless he half-runs you through with a knife, or cracks your noddle with a poker. And if he bolts away from you
I say it friendly, as woman to woman, for there's never any knowing what a man med do
you'll have the sticks o' furniture, and won't be looked upon as a thief. ~ Thomas Hardy

This Sabbath day has been designated as a day of thanksgiving, a day of gratitude-even a day of prayer. We pause, we ponder, we reflect on the blessings an all-wise Heavenly Father has bestowed upon us, His children, by bringing peace to the battlefield of war and comfort to the hearts of so many in this wonderful world where we live and which we call home ~ Thomas S. Monson

Perhaps no two events ever united so intimately and forceably to combat and expel prejudice, as the Revolution of America, and the Alliance with France. Their effects are felt, and their influence already extends as well to the old world as the new. Our style and manner of thinking have undergone a revolution, more extraordinary than the political revolution of the country. We see with other eyes; we hear with other ears; and think with other thoughts, than those we formerly used. ~ Thomas Paine

Let heaven-eyed Prudence battle with Desire. ~ James Thomas Fields

If nobody makes you do it, it counts as fun. ~ Thomas Hobbes

Government "planning" is not an alternative to chaos. It is a pre-emption of other people's plans. ~ Thomas Sowell

The Philosopher, too, says of the wicked (Ethic. ix, 4) that "their soul is divided against itself ... one part pulls this way, another that"; and afterwards he concludes, saying: "If wickedness makes a man so miserable, he should strain every nerve to avoid vice. ~ Thomas Aquinas

Peace and happiness are what you covet, but these are only to be obtained by labor. ~ Thomas A Kempis

God damn it," Thomas said as he sat down at the table, carrying a tray so piled with food that it was a miracle he could even lift it. "Aren't we all just too good-looking for words. ~ John Scalzi

He decided that we suffer from great temporal homesickness for the decade we were born in. ~ Thomas Pynchon

Jefferson appeared to his enemies as an American version of Candide; Hamilton as an American Machiavelli. ~ Joseph J. Ellis

Have you tried to talk to her?"
"What would you like me to say Bastian? OH, I'M SORRY, INEZ. I DIDN'T MEAN TO BITE YOU, MY FANGS SLIPPED. ~ Lynsay Sands

Of the 200 light bulbs that didn't work, every failure told me something that I was able to incorporate into the next attempt. ~ Thomas A. Edison

This homosexual dream of perfect metaphysical union is not so much a reflected heterosexual ideal as it is the compensation for having wept in the darkness. ~ Thomas E. Yingling

I hate that I have to say this, but you're too innocent, too trusting that the good will win out the evil in people. It's what I love about you and never wish for that to change. But evil exists, Abby, and people do bad things. You can believe in humanity, but trusting them is something different. Trust yourself and what your heart tells you. ~ Ashlan Thomas

The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof. ~ Thomas Hobbes

As for his look, it was a natural cheerfulness striving against depression without, and not quite succeeding. The look suggested issolation, but it revealed something more. As Usual with bright natures, the deity that lies ignominiously chained within a ephemeral human carcase shone out of him like a ray. ~ Thomas Hardy

It is not the dignitaries who are the real cause of hope, however. What is an enormously refreshing and hopeful sign is to see the young people who make up the membership of the Federalist Society. Earnest, intelligent, and unpretentious, these are the young men and women of whom any nation and any age could be proud. ~ Thomas Sowell

The greatest characters the world has known, have rose on the democratic floor. Aristocracy has not been able to keep a proportionate pace with democracy. ~ Thomas Paine

Who am I to know my own motives. But I did foolhardy things. ~ Thomas Pynchon

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

Inequality is not necessarily bad in itself: the key question is to decide whether it is justified, whether there are reasons for it. ~ Thomas Piketty

Some experience of popular lecturing had convinced me that the necessity of making things plain to uninstructed people, was one of the very best means of clearing up the obscure corners in one's own mind. ~ Thomas Huxley

We should not, however, judge the value of our meditation by "how we feel." A hard and apparently fruitless meditation may in fact be much more valuable than one that is easy, happy, enlightened and apparently a big success. ~ Thomas Merton

There are no strangers in Freemasonry, only friends you've yet to meet. ~ Dave Thomas

Excuse me for troubling your capraesque lives with this first-ever note of moral unclarity. ~ Rob Thomas

I want steak," he said, stopping to look at her. "And shrimp. And lobster. And pancakes. And a candy bar".
"I'm sorry, you'll have to settle for a couple of sandwiches".
Thomas sighed."Figures". ~ James Dashner

When Washington visited Portsmouth in 1789, he was not much impressed by the architecture of the little town that had stood by him so stoutly in the struggle for independence. ~ Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Republicans won big, running as Republicans, in 2004. But once they took control of Congress, they started acting like Democrats and lost big. There is a lesson in that somewhere but
whether Republicans will learn it is another story entirely. ~ Thomas Sowell

Everyone is entitled to commit murder in the imagination once in a while, not to mention lesser infractions. ~ Thomas Nagel

My most earnest wish is to see the republican element of popular control pushed to the maximum of its practicable exercise. I shall then believe that our government may be pure and perpetual. ~ Thomas Jefferson

As the current U.S.-Israel assault raged, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman explained that Israel's tactics in the current attack, as in its invasion of Lebanon in 2006, are based on the sound principle of "trying to 'educate' Hamas, by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on the Gaza population." That makes sense on pragmatic grounds, as it did in Lebanon, where "the only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians - the families and employers of the militants - to restrain Hezbollah in the future."10 And by similar logic, bin Laden's effort to "educate" Americans on 9/11 was highly praiseworthy, as were the Nazi attacks on Lidice and Oradour, Putin's destruction of Grozny, and other notable educational exercises. ~ Noam Chomsky

Love is not altogether a delirium, yet it has many points in common therewith. ~ Thomas Carlyle

In fact, whenever I read something as complicated as Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and think about his having written it in longhand, I am not merely awed - the thought gives me a headache. ~ Thomas B. Sawyer

A husband should tell his wife everything that he is sure she will find out, and before anyone else does. ~ Thomas Dewar, 1st Baron Dewar

What's it like here?
There's a biscuit factory next door. We get the broken ones. ~ Hiedi Thomas Jennifer Worth

I follow Grandma toward the front of the sanctuary. She and Granddaddy have a spot on the second row that's theirs. See, the first row is for folks who wanna show off. The second row is for folks who wanna show off but wanna act like they're subtler about it. ~ Angie Thomas

The Englishman's strong point is his vigorous insularity; that of the American his power of adaptation. Each of these attitudes has its perils. The Englishman stands firmly on his feet, but he who merely does this never advances. The American's disposition is to step forward even at the risk of a fall. ~ Thomas Wentworth Higginson

We are not lacking in the dynamic forces needed to create the future. We live immersed in a sea of energy beyond all comprehension. ~ Thomas Berry

I'm interested in the impact my movies have on people and how it affects them, and what they like and what they don't like - and what they take away from it. What leaves an impression, you know? ~ Thomas Jane

A battle is a terrible conjugation of the verb to kill: I kill, thou killest, he kills, we kill, they kill, all kill. ~ Thomas Carlyle

Nowadays men cannot love seven night but they must have all their desires: that love may not endure by reason; for where they be soon accorded and hasty, heat soon it cooleth. Right so fareth love nowadays, soon hot soon cold: this is no stability. But the old love was not so. ~ Thomas Malory

A bolt of warmth, fierce with joy and pride and gratitude, flashed through me like sudden lightning. I don't care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching - they are your family. And they were my heroes. ~ Jim Butcher

What is newest to one in foreign countries is not always the people, but their surroundings, and those same little details of life and circumstance which make no impression on a man in his own land until he returns to it after a prolonged absence, and then they stand out very sharply for a while. ~ Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Every answer can be followed by another question. ~ Thomas Lloyd Qualls

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel. ~ Thomas Paine

Emulation is grief arising from seeing one's self, exceeded or excelled by his concurrent, together with hope to equal or exceed him in time to come, by his own ability. But envy is the same grief joined with pleasure conceived in the imagination of some ill-fortune that may befall him. ~ Thomas Hobbes

From such beginnings of governments, what could be expected, but a continual system of war and extortion? ~ Thomas Paine

And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables,
the nightjars
Flashing into the dark. ~ Dylan Thomas

Think of what would happen to us ... if there were no humorists; life would be one long Congressional Record. ~ Thomas Lansing Masson

If all the sins of the flesh are worthy of condemnation because by them man allows himself to be dominated by that which he has of the animal nature, much more deserving of condemnation are the sins against nature by which man degrades his own animal nature ... ~ Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Gravesen thinks he's broke his hand, but I told him that you play football with your feet and not your hand. ~ Gordon Strachan

The oldest, easiest to swallow idea was that the earth was man's personal property, a combination of garden, zoo, bank vault, and energy source, placed at our disposal to be consumed, ornamented, or pulled apart as we wished. ~ Lewis Thomas

The need to control others as a prerequisite for male agency presupposed self-control. That imperative, in turn, included both the physical and emotional dimensions of a man's bodily self. ~ Thomas Van Nortwick

Witnesses parade in, there is the travesty of a trial, and Ercole meets his end in a refreshingly simple mass stabbing. ~ Thomas Pynchon

Chuck seemed deep in thought. "Well, they found a dead Griever, right?" "Yeah," Newt replied. "Thanks for that bit of news." Chuck absently tapped his fork against the table for a few seconds. "Well, then who killed the stupid thing?" Excellent question, Thomas thought. He waited for Newt to answer, but nothing came. He obviously didn't have a clue. ~ James Dashner

And I think you're brilliant, talented, courageous, beautiful. You're my miracle. But you're the only one who can say who you are with authority. So, who are you? ~ Angie Thomas

Several technological and political forces have converged, and that has produced a global, Web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration without regard to geography or distance - or soon, even language. ~ Thomas Friedman

She saw that he had singled her out from the three, as a woman is singled out in such cases, for no reasoned purpose of further acquaintance, but in commonplace obedience to conjunctive orders from headquarters, unconsciously received by unfortunate men when the last intention of their lives is to be occupied with the feminine. ~ Thomas Hardy

If someone is not happy with one thing we either tweak it until they're happy with it. We all know where that line is, where you have to be three hands up. ~ Brandon Thomas

Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less. ~ Thomas Szasz

The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the ... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them. ~ Thomas Jefferson

He is the greatest influence in the world today. There is ... a fifth Gospel being written - the work of Jesus Christ in the hearts and lives of men and nations. ~ William Griffith Thomas

In English-speaking countries, the connection between heresy and homosexuality is expressed through the use of a single word to denote both concepts: buggery ... Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (Third Edition) defines "buggery" as "heresy, sodomy. ~ Thomas Szasz

Unlike my brother, I had no respect for authority. Very early on, Uncle Georg had told me the truth about teachers: that they were moral cowards who took out on their pupils all the frustrations they could not take out on their wives. When I was very young Uncle Georg impressed upon me that among the educated classes teachers were the basest and most dangerous people, on a par with judges, who were the lowest form of human life. Teachers and judges, he said, are the meanest slaves of the state--remember that. He was right, as I have discovered not just hundreds but thousands of times. No teacher and no judge can be trusted as far as you can throw him. Without scruple or compunction they daily destroy many of the existences that are thrown upon their mercy, being motivated by base caprice and a desire to avenge themselves for their miserable, twisted lives--and they are actually paid for doing so. The supposed objectivity of teachers and judges is a piece of shabby mendacity, Uncle Georg said--and he was right. Talking to a teacher we soon discover that he is a destructive individual with whom no one and nothing is safe, and the same is true when we talk to a judge. ~ Thomas Bernhard

The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is. ~ Thomas Aquinas

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson corresponded for 13 years before they died on the same day. They asked, "How can one have prosperity without commerce? How can one have commerce without luxury? How can one have luxury without corruption? How can you have corruption without the end of the Republic?" And they really didn't know the answer. ~ Pete Seeger

Well the themes for me were and remain sex and love and grief and death - the things that make us and undo us, create and destroy, how we breed and disappear and the emotional context that surrounds these events. ~ Thomas Lynch

Raymond Chandler I love a lot, and the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard. I really love his voice. ~ Steve Toltz

A democracy is no more than an aristocracy of orators. The people are so readily moved by demagogues that control must be exercised by the government over speech and press. ~ Thomas Hobbes

While some men see ordinary happenings, others see divine light and guidance. ~ Thomas Merton

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Tis time to die, when 'tis a shame to live. ~ Thomas Middleton

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. ~ Thomas Jefferson

All things appear incredible to us, as they differ more or less from our own manners.
- Utopia, Bk 2. (1516) ~ Thomas More

They have had great disputes among themselves, whether one chosen by them to be a priest would not be thereby qualified to do all the things that belong to that character, even though he had no authority derived from the Pope, ~ Thomas More

I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in their times. ~ Thomas Jefferson