Thomas More Quotes

The hasty bitch bringeth forth blind welps

It is possible to live for the next life and still be merry in this.

By reason of gifts and bribes the offices be given to rich men, which should rather have been executed by wise men.

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.

Let them speak as lewdly as they list of me ... as long as they do not hit me, what am I the worse?

The way to heaven is the same from all places, and he that had no grave had the heavens still over him.

The Utopians wonder that any man should be so enamoured of the lustre of a jewel, when he can behold a star or the sun

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

Most people know nothing about learning; many despise it. Dummies reject as too hard whatever is not dumb.

For the whole country is full of soldiers, still kept up in time of peace (if such a state of a nation can be called a peace);

An absolutely new idea is one of the rarest things known to man.

And as robbers prove sometimes gallant soldiers, so soldiers often prove brave robbers, so near an alliance there is between those two sorts of life.

Laws could be passed to keep the leader of a government from getting too much power.

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

I die the kings good servant, but God's first.

Getting married is like putting one's hand in a bag containing 99 serpents and one eel.

The change of the word does not alter the matter

I die the king's faithful servant, but God's first.

A man taking basil from a woman will love her always.

Nobody owns anything but everyone is rich - for what greater wealth can there be than cheerfulness, peace of mind, and freedom from anxiety?

No more like together than is chalke to coles.

For as love is oftentimes won with beauty, so it is not kept, preserved, and continued, but by virtue and obedience.

The times are never so bad but that a good man can make shift to live in them.

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

Anyone who campaigns for public office becomes disqualified for holding any office at all.

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.

Isn't this conception of absolute justice absolutely unjust?

Pride thinks it's own happiness shines the brighter by comparing it with the misfortunes of others.

Anticipated spears wound less.

Occupy your mind with good thoughts, or the enemy will fill them with bad ones.

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

There is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war

What is deferred is not avoided.

[On ascending the platform to his execution] I pray you, I pray you, Mr Lieutenant, see me safe up and for my coming down, I can shift for myself.

Fortune doth both raise up the low and pluck down the high.

We cannot go to heaven in featherbeds.

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.

Two evils, greed and faction are the destruction of all justice.

If honor were profitable, everybody would be honorable.

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

For things will never be perfect, until human beings are perfect - which I don't expect them to be for quite a number of years!

You wouldn't abandon ship in a storm just because you couldn't control the winds.

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

For the springs of both good and evil flow from the prince over a whole nation, as from a lasting fountain.

No man shall be blamed in the maintenance of his own religion.

He is an unskilful physician that cannot cure one disease without casting his patient into another.

We are all in the same cart, going to execution; how can I hate anyone or wish anyone harm?

A little wanton money, which burned out the bottom of his purse.

I would uphold the law if for no other reason but to protect myself.

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

Every eutopia contains a dystopia, every dystopia contains a eutopia. In

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

One man to live in pleasure and wealth, whiles all other weap and smart for it, that is the part not of a king, but of a jailor.

(...) there's a rule that no question affecting the general public may be finally decided until it has been debated for three days.

Lord, give me a sense of humor so that I may take some happiness from this life and share it with others.

Some men may be snared by beauty alone, but none can be held except by virtue and compliance.

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

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

rule is easily observed by removing some of the children of a more fruitful couple to any other family that does not abound so much in them.

Whoever loveth me, loveth my hound.

Our emotional symptoms are precious sources of life and individuality.

It is part of the business of life to be affable and pleasing to those whom either nature, chance or circumstance has made our companions.

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.

If the lion knew his own strength, hard were it for any man to rule him.

and some are every year restored to it upon the good character that is given of them.

And, indeed, nature has so made us, that we all love to be flattered and to please ourselves with our own notions

Everywhere do I percieve a certain conspiracy of rich men seeking their own advantage underthat name and pretext of commonwealth.

Why shouldst thou not take even as much pleasure in beholding a counterfeit stone, which thine eye cannot discern from a right stone?

A pretty face may be enough to catch a man, but it takes character and good nature to hold him.

but the priest's vestments are parti-coloured, and both the work and colours are wonderful.

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

Take something from yourself, to give to another, that is humane and gentle and never takes away as much comfort as it brings again.

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.

From whichsoever of these motives it might be, true it is, that many of them came over to our religion, and were initiated into it by baptism.

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

Show the sun with a lantern.

The things we pray for, good Lord, give us grace to labor for.

A drowning man will clutch at a straw.

No one, on his deathbed, ever regretted having been a Catholic.

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

What part soever you take upon you, play that as well as you can and make the best of it.

All the life must be led with one, and also all the griefs and displeasures coming therewith patiently be taken and borne.