Best 101 quotes of Thomas More on MyQuotes

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Every tribulation which ever comes our way either is sent to be medicinal, if we will take it as such, or may become medicinal, if we will make it such, or is better than medicinal, unless we forsake it.

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

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.

For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.

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.

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

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.

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

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

If honor were profitable, everybody would be honorable.

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

If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that avarice, anger, pride and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It is a wise mans part, rather to avoid sickness, than to wish for medicines.

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.

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

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

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.

Lawyers-a profession it is to disguise matters.

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

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

Nobody sees a flower really,it is so small. We haven't time,and to see takes time- like to have a friend takes time. One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled, but few are educated.

No living creature is naturally greedy, except from fear of want - or in the case of human beings, from vanity, the notion that you're better than people if you can display more superfluous property than they can.

No more like together than is chalke to coles.

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.

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

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.

One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated.

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.'

Our emotional symptoms are precious sources of life and individuality.

Pride measures prosperity not by her own advantages but by the disadvantages of others. She would not even wish to be a goddess unless there were some wretches left whom she could order about and lord it over, whose misery would make her happiness seem all the more extraordinary, whose poverty can be tormented and exacerbated by a display of her wealth. This infernal serpent, pervading the human heart, keeps men from reforming their lives, holding them back like a suckfish.

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

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.