Top 94 Quotes & Sayings by Thomas More - Page 2

The Utopians feel that slaughtering our fellow creatures gradually destroys the sense of compassion, which is the finest sentiment of which our human nature is capable.

A drowning man will clutch at a straw.

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

They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters.

Who does more earnestly long for a change than he who is uneasy in his present circumstances? And who run to create confusions with so desperate a boldness as those who have nothing to lose, hope to gain by them?

The education of youth belongs to the priests, yet they do not take so much care of instructing them in letters, as in forming their minds and manners aright; they use all possible methods to infuse, very early, into the tender and flexible minds of children, such opinions as are both good in themselves and will be useful to their country, for when deep impressions of these things are made at that age, they follow men through the whole course of their lives, and conduce much to preserve the peace of the government, which suffers by nothing more than by vices that rise out of ill opinions.

Rose! Thou art the sweetest flower that ever drank the amber shower: Even the Gods, who walk the sky, are amourous of thy scented sigh.

To love God, which was a thing far excelling all the cunning that is possible for us in this life to obtain.

I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

Our emotional symptoms are precious sources of life and individuality.

Lawyers-a profession it is to disguise matters.

Instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that nobody's under the frightful necessity of becoming, first a thief, and then a corpse.

Nor can they understand why a totally useless substance like gold should now, all over the world, be considered far more important than human beings, who gave it such value as it has, purely for their own convenience.

The chief aim of their constitution is that, whenever public needs permit, all citizens should be free, so far as possible, to withdraw their time and energy from the service of the body, and devote themselves to the freedom and culture of the mind. For that, they think, is the real happiness of life.

To gold and silver nature hath given no use that we may not well lack.

Yea, marry, now it is somewhat, for now it is rhyme; before, it was neither rhyme nor reason.

It is only natural, of course, that each man should think his own opinions best: the crow loves his fledgling, and the ape his cub.

The most part of all princes have more delight in warlike manners and feats of chivalry than in the good feats of peace.

For men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in marble; and whoso doth us a good turn we write it in dust.

In the first place, most princes apply themselves to the arts of war, in which I have neither ability nor interest, instead of to the good arts of peace. They are generally more set on acquiring new kingdoms by hook or by crook than on governing well those that they already have.

. . . the state of things and the dispositions of men were then such, that a man could not well tell whom he might trust or whom he might fear.

And one wild Shakespeare, following Nature's lights, Is worth whole planets, filled with Stagyrites.

It is naturally given to all men to esteem their own inventions best.

There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves, but it were much better to make such good provisions by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and of dying for it.

The servant may not look to be in better case than his master.

No more like together than is chalke to coles.

What though youth gave love and roses, Age still leaves us friends and wine

Every man has by the law of nature a right to such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his subsistence.

The way to heaven out of all places is of length and distance.

As for rosemary, I let it run all over my garden walls, not only because my bees love it but because it is the herb sacred to remembrance and to friendship, whence a sprig of it hath a dumb language.

They set great store by their gardens . . . Their studie and deligence herein commeth not only of pleasure, but also of a certain strife and contention . . . concerning the trimming, husbanding, and furnishing of their gardens; everye man or his owne parte.

On his mounting the scaffold to be beheaded: 'I pray you, Master Lieutenant, see me safely up, and for my coming down, let me shift for myself.' To the executioner: 'Pick up thy spirits, Man, and be not afraid to do thyne office; my neck is very short; take heed, therefore thou strike not awry, for saving of thyne honesty.'

Howbeit, this one thing, son, I assure you on my faith, that if the parties will at hands call for justice, then, all were it my father stood on the one side, and the devil on the other, his cause being good, the devil should have right.

And peradventure we have more cause to thank Him for our loss than for our winning; for His wisdom better seeth what is good for us than we do ourselves.