Thomas More Quotes

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.
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Better Death Preserve Punishment Steal Thief
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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Capability Compassion Creature Feeling Human Nature
One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated.
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Education Greatness Ourselves Problem School Time
I should only ever tell the king what he ought to do, not what he could do. For if the lion knows his own strength, no man could control him.
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Aware Control Direction Man Myself Strength
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.
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Goodness Man Writing
You wouldn’t abandon ship in a storm just because you couldn’t control the winds.
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Abandon Control Storm Wind
Every man has by the law of nature a right to such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his subsistence.
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Law Man Nature Necessary Portion Substance Waste
Occupy your mind with good thoughts, or the enemy will fill them with bad ones.
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Enemy Goodness Mindset Oneself Thinking
Nobody owns anything but everyone is rich – for what greater wealth can there be than cheerfulness, peace of mind, and freedom from anxiety?
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Greatness Mindset Peace Wealth
The servant may not look to be in better case than his master.
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Better Master Servant
By confronting us with irreducible mysteries that stretch our daily vision to include infinity, nature opens an inviting and guiding path toward a spiritual life.
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Life Mystery Nature Spiritual Vision
Food is an implement of magic, and only the most coldhearted rationalist could squeeze the juices of life out of it and make it bland. In a true sense, a cookbook is the best source of psychological advice and the kitchen the first choice of room for a therapy of the world.
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Advice Food Life Magic Therapy True World
I die the king’s faithful servant, but God’s first.
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Death Faith God Myself
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.
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Devil Faith Goodness Hands Oneself Right Thing
If the lion knew his own strength, hard were it for any man to rule him.
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Himself Lion Man Rule Strength
They wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than it is.
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Esteem Gold Value Wonder
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.
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Flower Scent Shower Walk
Because the soul has such deep roots in personal and social life and its values run so contrary to modern concerns, caring for the soul may well turn out to be a radical act, a challenge to accepted norms.
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Acceptance Challenge Life Modern Personal Social Soul
If honor were profitable, everybody would be honorable.
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Honor Profit
A drowning man will clutch at a straw.
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Drowning Man One Liner
Yea, marry, now it is somewhat, for now it is rhyme; before, it was neither rhyme nor reason.
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Marriage Reason Rhyme
The times are never so bad but that a good man can make shift to live in them.
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Bad Goodness Live Man Time
Lord, give me a sense of humor so that I may take some happiness from this life and share it with others.
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Happiness Humor Life Share
Lawyers-a profession it is to disguise matters.
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Disguise Law Profession
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?
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Change Circumstance Creation Hope Lose Present
It’s wrong to deprive someone else of a pleasure so that you can enjoy one yourself, but to deprive yourself of a pleasure so that you can add to someone else’s enjoyment is an act of humanity by which you always gain more than you lose.
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Act Enjoyment Humanity Oneself Pleasure Wrong
For when they see the people swarm into the streets, and daily wet to the skin with rain, and yet cannot persuade them to go out of the rain, they do keep themselves within their houses, seeing they cannot remedy the folly of the people.
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Home People Rain Remedy Skin Street

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