Thomas More Quotes
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If the lion knew his own strength, hard were it for any man to rule him.
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A man taking basil from a woman will love her always.
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What though youth gave love and roses, Age still leaves us friends and wine
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One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated.
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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.
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. . . 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.
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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.
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No more like together than is chalke to coles.
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There are several sorts of religions, not only in different parts of the island, but even in every town; some worshipping the sun, others the moon or one of the planets.
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They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters.
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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.
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The way to heaven out of all places is of length and distance.
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An absolutely new idea is one of the rarest things known to man.
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I would uphold the law if for no other reason but to protect myself.
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And it will fall out as in a complication of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one sore, you will provoke another; and that which removes the one ill symptom produces others.
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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.
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We cannot go to heaven in featherbeds.
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Sex and religion are closer to each other than either might prefer.
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Occupy your mind with good thoughts, or the enemy will fill them with bad ones.
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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.'
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In Utopia, where every man has a right to everything, they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full, no private man can want anything; for among them there is no unequal distribution, so that no man is poor, none in necessity; and though no man has anything, yet they are all rich; for what can make a man so rich as to lead a serene and cheerful life, free from anxieties.
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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.
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It is a wise mans part, rather to avoid sickness, than to wish for medicines.
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You wouldn't abandon ship in a storm just because you couldn't control the winds.