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The old men ask for more time the young waste it. And the philosopher simply smiles, knowing there is none there.

R. S. Thomas

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R. S. Thomas
Age: 87 †
Born: 1913
Born: March 29
Died: 2000
Died: September 25
Author
Poet
Writer
Cardiff
Wales
Ronald Stuart Thomas
Waste
Simply
Knowing
Asks
Young
Men
Smiles
Time
Philosopher
None

More quotes by R. S. Thomas

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The meaning is in the waiting.
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Even God had a Welsh name : He spoke to him in the old language He was to have a peculiar care For the Welsh people. History showed us He was too big to be nailed to the wall Of a stone chapel, yet still we crammed him Between the boards of a black book .
R. S. Thomas
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I have known exile and a wild passion Of longing changing to a cold ache. King, beggar and fool , I have been all by turns, Knowing the body's sweetness, the mind 's treason Taliesin still, I show you a new world , risen, Stubborn with beauty , out of the heart 's need .
R. S. Thomas
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I am a man now. Pass your hand over my brow. You can feel the place where the brains grow.
R. S. Thomas
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I turn now not to the Bible but to Wallace Stevens.
R. S. Thomas
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Deliver me from the long drought of the mind. Let leaves from the deciduous Cross fall on us, washing us clean, turning our autumn to gold by the affluence of their fountain.
R. S. Thomas
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The nearest we approach God ...is as creative beings. The poet, by echoing the primary imagination, recreates. Through his work he forces those who read him to do the same, thus bringing them... nearer to the actual being of God as displayed in action.
R. S. Thomas
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I'm obviously not orthodox, I don't know how many real poets have ever been orthodox.
R. S. Thomas
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You have to imagine a waiting that is not impatient because it is timeless.
R. S. Thomas
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Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer Said once about the long toil that goes like blood to the poems making? Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls, Limp as bindweed, if it break at all Life's iron crust Man, you must sweat And rhyme your guts taut, if you'd build Your verse a ladder.
R. S. Thomas
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I have been all men known to history, Wondering at the world and at time passing I have seen evil, and the light blessing Innocent love under a spring sky.
R. S. Thomas
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Man is a dream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him from God, a glory comes to him and his life is sweet.
R. S. Thomas
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You cannot find the centre Where we dance , where we play, Where life is still asleep Under the closed flower , Under the smooth shell Of eggs in the cupped nest That mock the faded blue Of your remoter heaven .
R. S. Thomas
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Now the power of the imagination is a unifying power, hence the force of metaphor and the poet is the supreme manipulator of metaphor... the world needs the unifying power of the imagination. The two things that give it best are poetry and religion.
R. S. Thomas
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I am left alone on the surface of a turning planet.
R. S. Thomas
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It is too late to start For destinations not of the heart . I must stay here with my hurt.
R. S. Thomas
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Is there a place here for the spirit ? Is there time on this brief platform for anything other than mind 's failure to explain itself?
R. S. Thomas
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Sunlight 's a thing that needs a window Before it enter a dark room. Windows don't happen. So two old poets, Hunched at their beer in the low haze Of an inn parlour, while the talk ran Noisily by them, glib with prose.
R. S. Thomas